


Open Books and Closed Doors

by kcscribbler



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Crew as Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24822412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kcscribbler/pseuds/kcscribbler
Summary: Five times Jim Kirk epically failed to keep a secret from his command crew, and one time his command crew kept it for him. Begins immediately post-2009 movie.
Comments: 46
Kudos: 173





	1. Chapter 1

VI.

In retrospect, he didn't really think this through.

Though to be fair, and also in retrospect, _none_ of them thought this through, because who even has time to stop and think, _period_ , when the universe is doing its best to implode around you and everyone is still trying to even assimilate the fact that said universe now has several billion fewer people in it than it did 72ish hours ago.

Right now, he's just trying not to think at all, because the minute he does he's fairly certain he'll go down for the count and he can't quite afford to do that, not yet.

Thankfully, it's only another fifteen minutes until the people who now constitute primary alpha shift officers on this not-quite-doomed ship come back on duty, after the mandatory 48 hours he made them take off-roster as soon as the rotations were worked out to permit the schedule change.

It's not like they are going anywhere fast, and so there is no need for what few hundred people remain on this ship to kill themselves trying to make repairs they are ill-equipped to execute, drifting in space as they are with a skeletal cadet crew and barely-functioning equipment. Ejecting the warp core had been a calculated gamble; but like all high-stakes games, that win had come at a high cost. The exact magnitude of that cost, he still has no idea, since their contact with Starfleet Command has been patchy at best.

So, he does what he can as far as rationing resources, and that includes his most important resource: people first, and _then_ food and water, since most of their replicating units reside below decks and that's where the most damage was done in the firefight between the _Enterprise_ and the _Narada_. They will be fine until they're met by relief ships in two weeks, halfway to the Jupiter outpost, but until then, they need to be careful about wasting water. He makes sure a crew is assigned to the few functioning recycling and replicating units around the clock, and reassures everyone concerned that that will be more than sufficient.

He will have no panic on this ship, not after all of this.

Twenty-four hours of nearly non-stop duty and McCoy had proven himself to be the competent leader he already was upon enlisting in Starfleet; Medical is at least one area Jim does not have to worry about, as it was already up and running again like a well-oiled, if somewhat traumatized, machine soon after the _Narada_ 's destruction. Captain Pike is stable in an induced coma, and just awaiting more specialized treatment as soon as a relief shuttle can arrive to transport him back to a medical freighter.

Four days after they left Terra on that ill-fated rescue mission to Vulcan, they are flying slowly back through the star systems like a particularly massive injured butterfly, graceless and clumsy under strained impulse power. But the crew – _his_ crew, for now, and isn't that a kicker – is slowly regaining their footing, and after 48 hours off-duty he can only hope the hastily promoted senior officers' mental states have at least improved enough that the healing process can begin.

Spock. That's a whole different problem, but he has no idea how to go about piecing back together that bridge he burned so spectacularly. While they have been civil in the brief conversations they've held during the last twenty-four hours (mainly a united front against a pretty pissed-off Admiralty), he has no real idea about his still First Officer's state of mind, only that the guy has steadfastly refused to take back the command chair, for reasons undisclosed. It doesn't take a genius-level IQ to make an educated guess as to those reasons, but that IQ does nothing to help him know what to say or do that might make things any better, personally or professionally.

Some problems, he just can't solve. Not today.

His own state, in the meantime, has become rapidly disillusioned with the idea of captaincy in general; he's never been so terrified in his life as he was three days ago, nor so exhilarated in the adrenaline rush of victory afterwards – and he's not sure which emotion is more dangerous to the surviving crew, if either is even acceptable in a true starship captain. That many lives being dependent on the actions and decisions of one man, however confident, however quick-thinking? It's _stupid_ , is what it is, and he's not cocky enough to think Luck didn't play a huge part in their success against Nero.

He's not ready to take this chair, or any other, and go into battle again. Not for a long time, not without more training, more knowledge, more loyalty from a command crew that isn’t just shoved into their chairs through happenstance. He can still hear the screams of dying crewmen – cadets, some of them just genius _children_ still, not even old enough to drink on every planet yet – ringing in his ears, and not because he hasn't slept.

The job isn't what he thought it would be, and he may not be the man for it.

Also, who knew there were so many damn reports to sign and file? At least the sheer mundane _boringness_ of the countless numbers and figures and equations scrolling in slow strings of blurred numbers across his PADD explains why he's having so much trouble focusing at the moment.

Sulu is the first one to report to the Bridge this morning, relieving the weary Tholian at the pilot's station with a friendly smile and clap on the shoulder. He looks rested at least, if a little tense, as he slides back into the seat.

"Captain."

The greeting is a little odd, almost awkward, and Jim grins down at the report he's reading; because despite all that, it sounds _right_. "Good morning, Mr. Sulu."

There are few chirps as the young man punches in his access codes and signs on to the terminal. Jim scrawls a signature across the bottom of the fuel output report – that one actually was useful, because he caught an error that the poor young trainees in Engineering never would have and might have cost them several days in the return journey – and sends it back on its way to Engineering, flagging it for Scott's view specifically.

Behind him, the turbolift door slides open and disgorges Chekov and another young cadet whose name he doesn't know – that needs to change, if she's going to be a regular on the alpha roster; he has to know the names of his crew – onto the Bridge. The whiz kid's wide smile flashes as he bobs past the command chair down to his seat, fairly bouncing into it with a cheerful wave at his seatmate.

Sulu snorts quietly, shaking his head, and glances back at the command dais. Jim returns the smile, and stands to stretch his legs.

The Bridge tilts dangerously for a second, gray haze sparking in the edges of his vision, and he hastily sits back down. Clears his throat, and glances to the new officer at the Environmental Control Station.

"Forgive me, Ensign, but I don't think we've met," he says, plastering on what he desperately hopes is _not_ a leering smile, because _not appropriate_ no matter how gorgeous she is. The Xantos species have always been known for being particularly beautiful people, all three of their genders.

Green eyes widen slightly. "Mirala, sir – Ensign Lia Mirala, assigned to Environmental Control. Captain."

"Welcome to the Bridge, Ensign." She bobs her head with a shy smile, and he returns the gesture briefly. "Please keep an eye on the quarters assigned to our Vulcan refugees today, if you will. Ensure they match the environmental conditions on record for the late planet, as much as is possible for the ship's systems to reproduce under current power levels. Have Mr. Scott reroute power from a non-essential system if needed to enhance the necessary environmental subroutines."

"Aye, sir."

"And make sure any reports from them go directly to me or Doctor McCoy, depending on which of us is on duty at the time, not to the First Officer." He glances up as the lift opens, admitting the last two members of the main alpha crew; they are on a skeleton crew for now, since most of the stations are not needed at this time, as half the ship is currently on autopilot. "Speak of the devil. Good morning, Commander. Lieutenant."

Uhura has the grace to return his greeting, even gives him a brief smile, and he suspects it has a lot to do with the fact that two days ago he'd basically shoved her from the Bridge, protesting and kicking, and told her to go take care of her boyfriend for 48 hours instead of trying to be a one-woman comms department.

Spock only raises an eyebrow and barely nods, seating himself at the Science station without a word and beginning to type almost ferociously into the computer.

"Riiiight." He sighs, swivels the chair back to the viewscreen after a brief nod of finality to Mirala, and finally stands, much more carefully this time. "Lieutenant Uhura, please record the change of duty watch officer to First Officer Spock in the ship's log."

Uhura looks at him strangely for a moment, but ultimately nods, turning to the appropriate switch and verbally recording the change of command.

He feels Spock's eyebrows boring into his back as he takes a moment to chat with Sulu and Chekov, one hand on each of their shoulders – the contact reassuring himself as much as them – and then slowly makes his way up the two interminably steep steps to the upper Bridge.

He has a bad feeling that the floor probably isn't _actually_ spinning under his feet.

Spock swivels his chair as he half-leans, half-sits on the edge of the Science console, and raises an eyebrow at him.

"May I assist you, Captain?" The inquiry is perfectly polite, and cold as liquid nitrogen – and no wonder, because even if he's already apologized both in person and in writing for the events of the last three days, that's damage which is going to take some time to heal.

"Yeah, actually," he sighs, and glances around to make sure none of the other occupants of the Bridge can hear. Spock's eyebrow rises another fraction. "Can you…look, Pike may have field-promoted me or whatever but that was only done verbally, and nothing was officially recorded before he left the ship because things got so crazy so quickly," he finally says, somewhat sheepishly.

Spock's not an idiot, he'll give the guy that; the conclusions (and consequences) obviously occur to him within moments, and he sees a frown line start to form between those hilariously expressive eyebrows. "Are you saying, Captain, that the ship's logs and thereby the ship's computer still do not recognize you as the Acting Captain?"

"Uh…yeah. Actually they don't recognize me as being aboard at all, since technically I was never supposed to be."

Huh, that actually looked like concern there, for just a second. Spock looks…perturbed, is the only word for it, as he turns to the computer and begins to bring up windows on the screen in rapid succession. Weird, he thought this could be fixed just by Spock's vocal activation of the ship's roster but if he has to do paperwork too, whatever. He's kind of past caring at this point and if it means he can get off the Bridge faster then the guy can do whatever the hell he wants.

"Captain, we have been aboard for over 72 hours; why has this not been rectified before now?"

Jim blinks a few times to clear his vision, and belatedly realizes that wasn't a rhetorical question when Spock gives a pointed look over one shoulder. "Uh, hello, kind of more important things going on the last couple of days?"

His weird Acting First presses a few buttons and types briefly for a moment. The computer whistles at them and then chimes twice, finally spitting out a tape with a dull _thonk_.

He blinks slowly as the object is held up in front of him and shaken in a slightly impatient gesture. "…What's that."

The lines of tension around Spock's eyes tighten. "A standard Starfleet officers' access card, Captain – the only method by which an officer can gain access to his quarters and meal replicators until said access is permanently voice or bio-signature activated. One which you would have received upon boarding had you not resorted to subterfuge."

Yeah, he'd kind of figured that much, when he realized the replicators in Officers' Mess wouldn't respond to generalized voice commands nor did they have pre-programmed selections like the ones in the Academy Mess.

Would have been good to know before he sent every command officer off duty two days ago, but hey. Live and learn.

Spock's tone is reprimanding and just a little patronizing, but he's honestly too tired to care, just grateful someone fixed the problem for him with minimal time involved and even more minimal questions.

"Thanks." He heaves a relieved sigh, and slides off the console after grabbing the card from his temporary First's hands.

 _Big_ mistake. Really, really freaking big mistake. The whole Bridge sort of just slides along with him and keeps moving in a slow-motion, sickening spin as he suddenly goes cold all over, ears starting to ring distantly over a sudden chorus of voices somewhere above his head. He blinks the gray blur away finally to see a wall of blue that abruptly shifts and lets in a sea of flickering lights and worried faces.

Blinking, he stares at what is apparently the Science computer for a second in stupid confusion, then realizes he's half-sitting, half-slumping in Spock's chair. Slowly rubbing his eyes, he tries to regain his dignity and figure out what the hell happened, and comes up woefully short.

Ensign Mirala's earnest face pops suddenly into view like a beautifully demented jack-in-the-box. "Medical reports Doctor McCoy is on his way, Lieutenant," she chirps, and Uhura looks weirdly relieved as she finally steps back toward her station. "He was asleep in his cabin."

Ugh, Bones. Sleeping for probably the first time in days, and hell if Jim is going to let him lose that rare rest period over something this stupid. He swears under his breath, struggling to a sitting position only to be held in place by an inhumanly strong hand.

"Keptin, maybe you should not get up just yet," Chekov pipes up from somewhere, and he could murder the kid for sounding so innocent and _helpful_.

"Oh, for God's sake, people, it's just a headache," he growls, wrenching away from what turns out to be Spock's hand. That proves to be a somewhat smaller but no less dizzying mistake, so he settles for an ungraceful flop back into the chair before the haze can drown his vision again. Groaning, he pinches the bridge of his nose with one hand until the world (and his stomach) settles again.

"Uh, that's a negative. Sir," Sulu adds the last hastily, but stands his ground with the stubbornness that probably was the only thing which meant he survived the last few days. "If Mr. Spock is right, you haven't accessed a replicator in almost three days, sir, and unless you've been stealing from somewhere that means you haven't eaten."

Well, yeah, but _that's_ not really that big of a deal – if they only knew how much worse he's been through; it's almost hilarious how concerned they are right now – and there's no reason to call freaking Medical about it.

"It would also appear that you have not been sleeping regularly either, Captain, despite your clear instructions to the rest of the crew to do so," Spock interjects severely, and Jim refrains from rolling his eyes only because he thinks they might just roll back into his pounding head and stick if he does. "That is unacceptable and in fact irresponsible for an officer in command. Furthermore –"

"Yeah, yeah, so you caught me, Spock. Big deal." He carefully moves forward, and when the dizziness doesn't return, lurches to his feet amid a chorus of protests. "Lieutenant, tell McCoy there's no need to come up here."

Uhura folds her arms. "All due respect, Captain, but no. Not unless you're headed to Sickbay."

Actually, that's a good idea, since nifty little officers' access card or not, he still doesn't have any assigned quarters on the _Enterprise_ and Bones's office couch has functioned just fine so far.

"Sure, okay." Her shock at his lack of protest is mirrored in the rest of the crew's faces, but at this point he really doesn't have the energy to even be offended. "Tell him I'll meet him there. Mr. Spock, you have the conn."

"Mr. Sulu, _you_ have the conn."

He hears a stifled snicker as the lift doors open, and decides it's just plain not worth it at this point. He apparently has a Vulcan shadow now whether he wants one or not, and resistance is likely futile.

The turbolift is running slower due to the power drain and so he's almost dozed off, the rhythmic hum oddly soothing, when Spock suddenly turns to him, looking more agitated than Jim has seen him since that horrible few minutes in the transporter room.

"Captain, may I make an inquiry?"

God, it was too much to hope for, just getting to Sickbay and crashing without another third degree, wasn't it. But the guy has just gone through a genocide, and lost the only family member who ever showed him love, probably – and if they ever want to even be civil, much less friendly, he's going to have to work at it too.

He straightens with a silent sigh, and makes a vague _go ahead_ motion. "Sure, Spock. Shoot."

"Why did you not locate myself or Doctor McCoy during the last thirty-six hours, in which you had to have realized one of us needed to complete the verbal change of command in the official logs in order for you to access all areas of ship functions?"

"Well, until like ten hours ago Bones was operating on Pike off-and-on and…uh. Trying everything he could think of to help your people keep it together, so to speak, Spock." He tries to sound apologetic for even bringing it up, but it's true. Bones had been up all night and all the next day desperately researching anything in the universe that might help a traumatized telepath (not that he'd had much luck, but he has to love the man for trying). "Then when I found out he'd finally gone off-duty I figured he needed the rest."

Spock shakes his head as they exit the lift on Deck Six, where repairs can be heard being made in the distance to the corridors surrounding Sickbay. "As did you by this time."

"Yeah, but that's different. I can get by fine on my own." He conjures up a smile and nods at a lieutenant in Engineering reds who snaps to crazy-stiff attention when they pass, and then shakes his head, vowing to abolish that habit if he ever gets his own ship. "Anyway, it was only a few more hours at that point."

Spock still has that brain-now-rebooting-please-hold look he gets when a human says something that doesn't compute with him. "I still do not understand why you did not then come to me for the same purpose," he says, almost sounding unhappy about the fact, which is weirdly hilarious for some reason to Jim's no doubt oxygen and nutrient-deprived mind.

He stops when Spock suddenly pauses in the middle of the corridor, literally pulling him to a halt with a hand on his arm. Seriously, what.

"Captain, surely you did not think I would decline to offer assistance due to our past altercations?"

He stares blankly for a second at those unreadable dark eyes. "Come again?"

"Your refusal to ask for assistance in this matter suggests that –"

"No, no, that's – that's not it, Spock." He sighs, rubbing his temple with his free hand. "I just…look, you had way more important things to worry about, right? And it really wasn't a big deal. If my blood sugar hadn't just dropped up there on the Bridge nobody else would've ever even known."

"That does not make the situation an acceptable one."

He just looks incredulously at this crazy Vulcan who for some reason still wants to be the acting First Officer of this crazy ship because because seriously, his brain cannot deal with any of this crazy right now and he really, really needs to sit down because he's pretty sure the wall under his hand isn't supposed to be moving like that and it's about to drop him right smack on his face again, _damn it_.

His ungraceful slide down said wall is thankfully halted by a blue blur and a red blur – great, some passing crewman saw him almost lose it – and voices filter in past the patchy blurriness in his ears.

"Sir, are you all right?"

He blinks, catches a vague impression of someone he kind-of-sort-of remembers seeing in one of the shuttle bays during the battle.

"Lieutenant, Doctor McCoy is expecting the Captain in Sickbay. Please notify the doctor of our location and request his immediate assistance. _Now_."

That makes him laugh a little, because Spock can be freaky scary when he wants to be – he should know – and the poor Engineering lieutenant scoots nervously down the corridor like an army is chasing him.

"Captain. _Captain_."

Someday, maybe even soon, that title will feel earned, not borrowed.

Right now, it just feels _right_.


	2. Chapter Two

V.

In retrospect, he should have seen this coming.

After all, recent events considered, it's a (literal) miracle that he's even alive right now, much less a functional member of society. No one else would be performing any differently, is what he keeps telling himself, and it's not like he doesn't have a valid excuse. Half the crew – what's left of them, after Khan's brutal rampage – has already resigned or asked for a transfer, and he can't blame them; after over a year in space with zero casualties, to then have a third of their crew complement obliterated in a matter of hours, not to mention knowing the man responsible destroyed a huge chunk of what for many of them was their home city…well. It's not every officer who can bounce back from that, and even fewer who can do so and remain on a ship haunted by ghosts _in memoriam_.

And that's just the scuttlebutt from the lower decks; he doesn't even want to think about what his senior staff might be contemplating, because that's a series of possibilities he can't quite bring himself to face, not yet.

He has bigger problems, right now. Much bigger.

Much, _much_ bigger.

"What do you mean, you _failed_?" Bones's screech could shatter transparisteel, and if Jim wasn't wishing he was on another planet right now, the color his (former) CMO is currently turning would be kind of hilarious.

As it stands, however, it's not even a little funny. He just ignores the diatribe with the ease of depressive apathy, waves off the looks he's getting because of it. Tosses back the last shot he's allowed to have with the (legal) drugs currently in his system, and seriously contemplates the consequences of pushing past those limits. Because, well, if he's going to be a test subject for Starfleet Medical then he might as well _test_ , right?

"Leonard." Uhura, bless her stupidly intercessory heart, tries to mediate with as much success as she's had this entire time in trying to bolster Jim's confidence – meaning, she fails with unusual finality. "You knew this was a possibility."

"Not for him!"

"Doctor. We are attracting undue attention in this establishment. Please lower your vocal register."

"No, no, Mr. Spock. Let him go ahead and broadcast it to the whole freaking quadrant," he mutters sourly into the glass in his hands. He rotates it slowly, snatching the light in a series of glowing fractals not at all reminiscent of phaser blasts. "After all, I'm sure there's _someone_ on the orbital dry-dock who hasn't heard the news yet."

"Jim, look, I didn't –" His upraised hand is clearer than an order would have been, and Bones grinds to an awkward halt, looking pained.

"Just drop it, Doctor." He scrubs a hand over his face, wonders for a moment if it's always felt so unfamiliar. "It's done. Leave it."

Spock's dark eyes flicker to his in the mirror behind the bar, and he can't stand the _knowing_ in them any more now than he has been able to stomach the sympathy and the patience and the _kindness_ the last few weeks. He averts his gaze, fingers clenching tightly around the empty glass.

"It's not like you only get one chance, anyway," Uhura points out, annoyingly calm. She's been the voice of reason this entire mess, not that this is news to anyone, and she flicks him a look with an easy shrug. "Frankly, we could all use the extra time to recover, I think."

"Not arguin' that point, given the number of people still in and out of Medical for counseling," McCoy echoes fervently, though the words are hollow with anxiety, and he won't stop that annoying hover at Jim's other elbow. "But we weren't expecting this, Jim. A few hiccups along the way, yeah – a little trauma showing up on the scores, hell yes. But completely failing a psych eval? You've never failed one of those in your life, Jim. This isn't _you_."

He finally sets the glass down with way more force than necessary, and half-turns, sliding off the stool as he does. McCoy shrinks back just a fraction, a gesture that is as foreign as it is just _sad_ , and it's that more than anything else which stalls his anger where it begins.

Deflated, he shakes his head, desperately pinching moisture out of his eyes. "Isn't it, Bones?" he asks at last, quiet with defeat. "I don't think I would even know."

"That is understandable, Captain," Spock interjects quietly from his other side.

He offers his former First a slightly bitter smile. "Drop the title, Spock; it's not looking like I'll have it back anytime soon."

Spock's flicker of expression is concealed quickly, but not quickly enough. This hasn't been easy on any of them, but probably least of all on his former First, current Acting Captain.

Probably just plain _Captain_ , actually, and that's likely the cause of that look. He knows what the beginning of Vulcan panic looks like by now.

 _Sorry, Spock. Can't really deal with anyone else's freak-out right now but mine._ Despite knowing his thoughts can only be transmitted telepathically through touch, he sends the silent apology over his shoulder anyway as he leaves, just one more shadow in the mass that slip silently into the night.

* * *

Of _course_ Bones must have him chipped, like some sort of sickly runaway puppy. Either that or he's losing his touch.

He scowls and takes his communicator back from a patient hand, wishing he'd tossed it in the Bay instead of just leaving it on the bar. "You just can't take a hint, can you, Commander."

Spock doesn't even bother to respond to that. "The Doctor is concerned for your health, both physically and mentally, at the moment."

Jim glances sideways, eyes narrowed. "So he sent _you_ instead of tracking me down himself?"

Spock looks shifty as hell. "We…differed in opinion as to your prospective whereabouts," he replies, slowly.

Jim snorts, a puff of crystalline derision in the night air – a chill he doesn't feel anymore, courtesy of new and improved blood pressure. "So he's, what, gone back to Starfleet Medical thinking I ran back to my hidey-hole?"

Spock's lips thin. "On the contrary, he seemed to be under the impression that you would be attempting to beam up to the dry-docked _Enterprise_ with, and I quote, 'something to prove to those asshats in the brass.'"

He wants to laugh, he really does – but it dies choked in his throat, and he can only look away before his eyes betray him too.

"He doesn't know," he finds himself saying, despite everything; because if he's ever going to get past this – if they're ever going to move beyond that last disaster of a mission on Nibiru, before it all went wrong so many months ago – then they have to start with complete honesty.

"I had surmised as much, based upon his uncharacteristically volatile reaction to what should have been an expected event."

"That's a very Vulcan way of saying you, on the other hand, were totally unsurprised that Starfleet thinks I'm too traumatized to be trusted back on a starship Bridge. Well you know what, Spock? Screw you." He turns away, arms folded to hide the fact that his hands have begun to shake again.

He stares out over the choppy waters of the San Francisco Bay, lights twinkling softly in the far distance. In this twilight, it's much harder to see the evidence of Khan's rampage through the downtown, almost impossible to determine the outlines of the _Vengeance_ 's wreckage still jutting like a deathly skyscraper out of the ground some streets away.

The air still smells vaguely of death and smoke, even twelve weeks later.

Sighing, he finally drops his head over his arms, resting on the faux wooden railing of the restored ancient walkway.

"I don't know what to do, Spock." Behind him, the ghostly shadows of memorial stones stretch like accusatory fingers. "I wouldn't trust me with a command right now, either." And he had wanted that new deep-space mission so very, very badly! It was the dream of a lifetime, now crashed and burned under so much rubble somewhere in the city, somewhere deep inside his mind.

Is it even his mind, anymore, if it's been completely rewired from scratch?

Warmth at his shoulder as Spock edges closer. "Your self-doubt does not negate the truth, Captain."

Here we go. "Yeah? And what is that, exactly?"

"That you were born to be a starship captain, Jim." He looks up incredulously, but that actually is genuine intensity in his former First's eyes, burning like a Vulcan firestorm. "That you refuse to accept inevitable defeat."

His hands clench involuntarily, jaw set. "And who exactly was it, _Commander_ , who pointed out that the real test of a starship captain is in how he accepts _inevitable defeat_?"

Spock looks out over the Bay for a moment, eyes dark.

"I was…a different being then," he finally says, almost to himself.

Jim's anger dissipates slightly. "We all were," he sighs. "We grew up fast, Spock. Maybe too fast. God knows I had enough arrogance stored up in me to last a decade, it was only a matter of time before my decisions got someone killed."

Spock actually flinches. "They _did_ ," he says quietly.

Now it's his turn to cringe.

"So we've established we're both a freaking mess, what else is new. It doesn't change the fact that I failed that evaluation so spectacularly I'll be lucky if they even let me take another one."

"I doubt that is quite what ha-"

"I walked into a simulated Engineering department and had a _panic attack_ , Spock. Pretty sure that qualifies." He quirks a rueful, bitter smile. "Wasn't expecting that, I have to tell you."

"The attack, or the simulation?"

He laughs, genuinely this time. "Both. I just…freaked. It wasn't even the engine room, and it's like it was just…"

"Straight out of a nightmare," is the almost whispered response, barely heard over the wind.

It's his turn to raise an eyebrow. "Well…yeah, but not even Bones knows that. Wait, you're not spying on my dreams, are you? Can Vulcans even do that? Mind-eaves-dropping?"

Spock looks annoyed, which is a welcome change from this weird emotional thing he's been doing, and the return to normality helps ground him, bring him back from the dangerous drift he's been trapped inside.

"That is impossible without physical contact, and a crime when done without consent. Also, I have no desire to inflict further trauma upon either of us by performing such an act."

Jim thinks he should probably be vaguely offended by that, but he lets it slide. The silence slips into seconds into minutes, broken only by the choppy waves and a distant siren. Then –

"So…Engineering, radiation leaks and hull breaches. And yours?" he asks quietly.

Spock side-eyes him again, but it's enough.

"Well, you're at least keeping it together better than I am," he murmurs, staring out at the water. "You'll make a good captain, Spock."

"I will not."

A little startled at the bald contradiction, calm though it had been, he half-turns, leaning with one elbow on the railing. "Now who's self-doubting?"

A glint of moonlight on choppy waves reflects briefly in dark eyes before they are hidden again, as his First turns to walk away, shaking his head. "This is not the time or place for such a discussion, Captain. Nor was it the reason I located you."

"Somehow, I think it might be, though," he calls over the sound of a sea breeze picking up around them. Spock pauses, a meter away, one hand on the railing. "If you're looking for my blessing or whatever, Spock, you have it. I owe you that much, at least."

His back slams into the railing with a bone-jarring thud as he scrambles back a half-step, away from the incoming photon torpedo he's obviously just launched – whatever he said, it was a really bad idea. Spock is _pissed_ , that much is obvious, even if the only outward indication of it is the fact that he's totally disregarded personal space and is doing that weird looming thing he does when he's trying to intimidate somebody. Usually it's in the crew's defense; to be on the receiving end? Is just frightening.

He is so damn tired of being _scared_.

"The hell is wrong with you?" he demands, arms folded. If anybody has a right to have an attitude problem right now, he definitely has dibs, all things considered.

"I could make the same inquiry." Spock's eyes flash cold fire across the intervening inches. "Your behavior in this matter has gone beyond that which is a tolerable human reaction to recent events. It now borders upon cowardice."

" _Excuse_ me?"

"I suffered no speech impediment. _Sir_." Wow, the sass. It would be funny if he didn't feel like punching the guy. Seriously, the old Ambassador was obviously a few pawns short of a chess set when he was talking about some Epic BFFness to last the ages or whatever, because he seriously could kill Spock sometimes.

"Are you kidding me right now? I just freaking _died_ , Spock. Maybe this is hard for you to comprehend, but us _humans_ kind of have an emotional reaction to that!"

A look of cold steel is leveled at him. "And exactly how long, Captain, do you intend to hide behind that excuse?"

His mouth goes dry. "What?"

"You are not the only one on the ship who suffered during recent events, Captain." Spock's eyes flick to the side for a brief instant before returning, just as pained as before. "You simply have not been forced to fully confront the consequences of those events until today."

"I…" Okay, that's fair enough. "Look, Spock, I just –"

"You made an inquiry a moment ago," Spock interrupts him, turning away to look over the moonlit water. A wave splashes loudly somewhere nearby as the wind whistles, then dies away.

"…Yes?"

"You say your dreams are of Engineering, of radiation leaks and hull breaches." He nods, and Spock looks up, eyes haunted. "Mine are of the _Enterprise_ 's command Bridge, and an empty chair."

Oh.

Well, that sucks.

"I will not accept the captaincy of the _Enterprise_ while the man who should, refuses to do so."

"I am not refusing anything!"

"You, the only man in Starfleet Academy history who demanded to take the Kobayashi Maru three times, are refusing to even contemplate passing a secondary psychological evaluation."

"That's...look, Spock, it's not that simple."

"I never conjectured it might be. But your crew has continued to perform their duties to the highest demand during your recovery period, in the expectation that their captain would at some point then do the same." He finds himself pinned by too-knowing eyes. "If that man is so paralyzed by fear, now, that he cannot do so, then we are all lost, Jim."

He swallows whatever sharp-cornered thing has taken up residence in his throat, and drops his eyes.

"You have an unhealthy amount of blind faith for a Vulcan, Mr. Spock," he finally manages, shaking his head.

"Faith is by definition blind, Captain."

"Not the point. I appreciate your support, Spock, don't think I don't. I just…" He makes a helpless gesture of frustration in the space between them. "I don't even know who I am anymore. Maybe I don't even want to be captain anymore – maybe I'm not capable of the job."

"I believe both those statements are inaccurate."

"Yeah, well, I wish I was as sure as you."

Spock takes a step forward, then catches himself and settles back into calm attention. Only his eyes clearly show just how unsettled he really is. "Your crew believes in you, Captain. As do I." He glances up at the hillside, the memorial stones dotting the grassy knoll. "As did Christopher Pike."

Pain spreads in his chest like a living thing, a wound still not healed.

"If you cannot believe in yourself, Jim – perhaps you should consider trusting your crew until you can."

One thing he's learned the hard way – he won't make promises he has little hope of keeping.

"I…don't know if I can, Spock." This whole mess has stripped him raw, from start to finish, and he has no idea if he can even recover, no idea if he even wants to come back from that.

His First regards him in silence for a moment, hands clasped behind him.

"Then perhaps we did not, after all, truly bring back James Kirk," Spock says, deathly quiet, before he disappears into the night like a wraith in smoke.

The words are so sad, so _resigned_ , that they hurt worse than any amount of radiation poisoning ever could.

* * *

They're eating in Officers' Mess when he finally locates them, and he doesn't allow himself to feel hurt because he wasn't invited; he is the one who's been withdrawing of late, not them, and God knows they've moved beyond such petty things by now as jealousy. The universe is too big, and they are too small, to waste time in stupidity.

He's grown up.

They all have, in different ways, but he thinks probably he most of all: and no wonder, because dying does seem to give a new appreciation for life.

Also, he probably had the most growing up to do.

Granted, it's a little annoying how they all just stop talking when he walks up. Nothing makes it more obvious they were talking about him than dead silence and Chekov turning the color of Scotty's uniform tunic, but he lets it slide, because, well. He can.

"Evening, gentlemen." He flicks a glance at Uhura, who rolls her eyes but smiles at him behind her tea cup. He remembers the first time he made the mistake of adding "and lady" to the end of that in their first officers' briefing, over a year ago – an outdated linguistics error he never made again.

"Keptin! It is good to see you!"

He grins, because the kid's enthusiasm is contagious, even if it's obviously half nerves. "Mr. Chekov. You've been auditing some Engineering classes while grounded, I hear."

"Aye, sir. I do not want repeats of what happened up there." A vigorous shake of the head, and a sidelong glance at their Chief Engineer's tolerant expression. "Meester Scott is giving me pointers as well, sir."

"Excellent. I'll keep your new skills in mind moving forward."

He feels Bones's eyes on him and turns, pulling one foot up to rest on the empty chair at the head of the table. He only just noticed, actually…did they leave that open on purpose, the one he normally sits in? The idea is oddly heartwarming, and it fills something inside him he hadn't realized had been missing.

"'Sup, Bones?"

McCoy glares at him over his water glass, sets it down with a definitive thud. "Where've you been, Jim?"

"Mm. here and there. You know."

A snort. "Uh-huh."

"Sir, why don't you grab a plate and sit down?" Sulu's well-meaning attempt at intervention elicits a well-aimed glare his direction. Totally unfazed, the young pilot rolls his eyes and returns to his sandwich after nodding pointedly to the empty chair.

Jim hides a smile at their interactions; they are totally becoming a family. A really weird, dysfunctional family, but a family. "Thank you, Mr. Sulu, but I can't stay. I just came by to see Commander Spock, actually."

Spock has been icily silent this whole time, dissecting what looks like some kind of alien salad, full of puke-colored vegetables Jim doesn't recognize and doesn't really want to. They haven't talked much, the last few weeks, and so the rest of his command crew looks at him a little warily now, as if wondering if they should just hunker down and wait it out or go get popcorn for the show.

At his last words, Spock raises a condescending eyebrow over his fork but says nothing. Uhura shifts slightly, and he hears what is likely steel-toed boot meeting Vulcan shin, since his First then jumps a little and shoots an annoyed look across the table.

"How may I assist you, sir?" he finally inquires coolly, continuing to pick at his salad.

Jim leans forward and tosses a data-padd onto the table. "You may report to the quartermaster tomorrow morning at 0900 hours, Mr. Spock. You are relieved as acting captain of the _Enterprise_ , effective immediately."

There's a small clang as the fork drops to the table, and both his First and McCoy make a somewhat uncoordinated grab for the instrument. The doctor is just a fraction quicker and snatches it with a look of triumph, whereupon Spock yanks his hand back in defeat. McCoy begins scrolling through the new orders, incredulous.

Sulu's eyes look like they're going to pop out of his head, and Chekov is bobbing back and forth in his excitement like a puppy about to get a treat dropped to him.

"Jim, what the hell is this!"

"Our new orders," he replies, grinning. "So start packing, people. We leave in thirty days, and we won't be back for a long time. Five years, guys, in deep space!"

"But – but –" The spluttering is almost hilarious, but he does feel sorry for Bones; the last few weeks have not been easy for any of them, but they've been especially difficult for his longsuffering CMO. "How –"

He leans over, hand on McCoy's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Bones," he says seriously. "I just…I dunno, I had to figure some things out. But I'm sorry."

He blinks in surprise as instead of getting punched like he deserves, he's suddenly wrapped up in a hug so tight he can barely breathe.

"Uh…okay," he says slowly.

McCoy steps back, hands still on his shoulders. "You're a damn fool, kid," he says, shaking him a little.

"I think we all knew that," he answers, glancing around the table. Scott nods solemnly and toasts him with his glass, though the rest gallantly refrain from comment.

"But I'm proud of you, Jim. This can't have been easy."

He glances away, a little embarrassed, and rubs the back of his neck. McCoy claps him on the shoulder one last time and then returns to his seat, still shaking his head. "I dunno how you did it, but these are pretty high scores," he continues, scrolling through the medical reports he of course now has access to. Pausing, he looks up suspiciously. "Y'didn't cheat on these, did you Jim?"

He snorts. "Tempting, but no. I'm not a total idiot."

"Debatable." McCoy tosses the padd back onto the table and leans back, grinning. "How _did_ you do it, anyway?"

"Well." He glances across the table, and is met with an innocently raised eyebrow. "Call it…blind faith, Bones."

McCoy looks considerably unimpressed, and not at all convinced.

"Also, Spock may have seriously pissed me off by calling me a coward."

His First's ears darken slightly, and he grins without a trace of repentance as Bones cackles and gives their resident Vulcan a hearty slap on the back. Spock promptly looks much aggrieved and scoots several feet down the long bench.

Jim takes advantage of the gap and plops down in between both of them, stealing a handful of Uhura's fries on the way and only narrowly missing being stabbed by a disposable fork.

It's going to be an _amazing_ five years.


	3. Chapter Three

IV.

In retrospect, it shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did.

Their first six months in space have been a _blast_ , there is really no other word for it. Trawling along toward the furthest reaches of charted territory, they've learned about each other and about the universe in equal measure, until after that half-year he really can't imagine his life any other way. This has to be what the old Ambassador was talking about, this feeling of euphoric _rightness_ in the world, like Destiny has finally gotten her act together and everything has settled back into orbit, calm and secure.

Six months out from Terra, they dock briefly at Starbase Fourteen for supplies and minor repairs, and rotate out a few personnel who have family in Mid-Space or who for one reason or another have chosen to not keep going into Deep Space.

Personally, Jim is sorry to see Carol Marcus stay behind, because they both thought back on Earth they might've gotten a good thing going, given the chance. But once he'd made it clear that as Captain he was never going to engage in a sexual or romantic relationship with anyone on his crew, she'd not taken it well, and finally decided to take a starbase posting instead. True, there are no clear regulations forbidding fraternization between the ranks provided there's clear documentation from both sides and witnessed by Medical that there is no coercion going on. But he just can't afford to screw this up, and nothing is more important to him now than this ship – _nothing_.

It's time for him to be a starship captain, and a captain he will be.

They rotate out twelve crewmen, and receive twelve fresh, new, almost overly eager faces, thrilled about being selected for the deep space mission and having no idea what they are walking into. Twenty-four hours later, refueled and supplied and not coming back for a very long time, they leave Starbase Fourteen, and enter the void beyond.

Despite being an exploratory ship, they are occasionally pulled off their charted course for the odd diplomatic mission or an occasional show of force, given that the 'Fleet still is recovering, even a few years later, from such a devastating obliteration as the Battle of Vulcan had been. There are still a scant few starships of their size in the galaxy, and as such the _Enterprise_ is thrown into more conflicts than Jim would like, given that their mission is supposed to be one of peace.

But he learns diplomacy, and he learns when the best diplomacy is a loaded phaser bank, and together they all learn just how very insignificant they are in a universe full of non-human species. (1)

He's aware that he is a little…unorthodox, is the kind word he thinks he heard Admiral Barnett use before they set out; and that's a good thing, because it keeps his crew guessing. A crew on their toes is an overly alert crew, and an overly alert crew _stays alive_. Given what they could be sailing into at any given moment, he wants every one of them alive and staying that way, for as long as possible.

So, unorthodox it is.

His first night aboard, he appropriates the shipwide comm, much to a very scandalized First Officer's dismay, and informs the entire crew in no uncertain terms to for heaven's sake stop the freaking saluting in the corridors because neither he nor any other commanding officer on this ship is a pompous jackass and besides, it interferes with efficiency.

Spock's face when one of his Science lieutenants passes them the next morning in the corridor with a bright smile and a "'Sup, Captain!" is a thing of beauty, but it's worth it. Those walls have to come down, all over the ship, if they are going to come down between them and alien species - and that barrier-breaking has to start with him. (He's always been particularly good at breaking barriers.)

He does roll his eyes when his entrance to the Bridge is announced every. single. _time_ by some eager young ensign at one of the less important stations, but he doesn't want to dampen anyone's spirits so he decides to let that slide for a while. Somehow he misses the increasingly evil looks exchanged between his helmsman and navigator every time he does, but when he comes back from lunch one day and is greeted with an angelically shrill "KEPTIN ON ZEE BRIDGE" he almost jumps back into the turbolift, eyes wide.

To his right, he can hear Uhura snickering, and he sighs, shaking his head.

"You might want to put yourself on shipwide, Mr. Chekov, I'm not sure they heard you in Secondary Engineering," he says dryly, seating himself again.

His navigator grins and this time, he does see the smirk exchanged between the two sitting in front of him.

Game on, then.

After that, it's the best part of his morning for a while. He tries to sneak onto the Bridge – nearly impossible because the turbolift doors are still so damn dramatic – and it's basically a race to see which idiot can yell the fastest to acknowledge his arrival. It in turns puzzles and terrifies new Bridge crewmen on rotation, when they take their stations at 0800 hours only to five minutes later have someone on the alpha shift suddenly screeching _Captain on the Bridge_ (sometimes, not even in Federation Standard; he about choked on his coffee the morning Uhura did it in flawless Klingon) at the top of their lungs the minute he walks in the room.

Half the time he ends up laughing so hard he can't even acknowledge the duty shift change in the ship's log for a few minutes, but it comes to a head one morning when he accidentally oversleeps and is three minutes late stumbling onto the Bridge holding a half drunk coffee – only to have them all (except for Spock, who doesn't even look up from his computer screen) at once trying to beat each other to the punch.

He has to leave the Bridge soon after, amid a chorus of only half-serious apologies, because said coffee ends up all over his uniform tunic, and it's _so_ not his fault because they scared him half to death. He is worthless before cup number two in the morning, and everyone knows that – it was an unfair fight. Also, this is the fourth tunic he's ruined this month, and Ship's Stores is getting a little annoyed with him even if the stupid things tear ridiculously easily. Freaking recycled fabrics are no match for their typical away mission, that is _not_ his fault.

But this little escapade is therefore why he's the only one not on the Bridge when they're attacked ten minutes later by what he only learns afterwards are two renegade Birds of Prey that decloak literally right in front of them, causing the _Enterprise_ to screech to a halt and execute a hasty evasive maneuver out of impulse power which the ship is really not designed for, in order to not collide with one of the smaller vessels.

He has the feeling Sulu deserves a pay raise, based on how much he felt the inertial dampeners flickering there for a moment, as he picks himself up off the floor of his quarters. The dampeners shouldn't be doing that unless the ship is maneuvering in a way she was never designed to be. As he pounds the intercom, his heart sinks for a moment when all he gets is suspicious static, indicating internal transmissions are already being jammed.

He's left Spock up there in command, cut off from the rest of the ship, which on a normal day would be manageable; but these are Klingons, _have_ to be Klingons this close to their neutral zone, no one else would be so brazen. And Spock has no practical skills in bluffing or intimidation, the only two effective strategies when dealing with Klingons; and he also hasn't had access to any recent briefings on the condition of the Klingon High Command.

Somehow, by diplomacy or skill or just plain luck, the Federation has thus far avoided outright war with the Klingon Empire – a feat which is nothing less than incredible, given the unrest which Khan's treachery had provoked on both sides. But Jim had at least been successful in convincing the Admiralty – backed, bittersweetly enough, by Pike's former Number One – that their best and only chance had lain in a complete disclosure to the public, and that had probably staved off the inevitable for a little longer. War requires probable cause, and a Klingon war requires honor; and to a Klingon there is no honor in beginning a war over the actions of a traitor who was taken down on a garbage scow by a mere Vulcan and a human female.

Of course, Jim would have thought there was no honor in ambushing a ship that is peacefully patrolling the Federation side of the Neutral Zone either. That in itself seems to indicate their actions aren't sanctioned officially by their empire, and that may be what saves the _Enterprise_. The High Command will no doubt disavow any knowledge of their actions should they be defeated; but he's not sure Spock will be willing to pull that particular trigger.

That's Jim’s job, anyway.

He tries the intercom one more time as the turbolift starts climbing to the Bridge, straining under what must be an immense power drain of crucial systems – not a good sign, indicating something vital has been hit in Engineering – but again, he only gets interference. The ship jolts around him again with a shrieking of taxed machinery, and he smiles, reminded once more of how she is a living thing he's falling more in love with as the months pass.

Then the floor drops out from under him.

* * *

Hazy red light is blinking annoyingly somewhere overhead when his brain comes back online however-long-it-is later, and for a second he just stares at it in befuddled silence.

Then adrenaline kicks in, and he blinks, cold fear and then confusion rushing through him and returning feeling to a body that really could do _without_ feeling right now, given the amount of pain he's in. His head feels like it slammed into something hard enough to dent it (his head, _and_ the thing), which given the condition of the lift is entirely possible, and he aches in enough places that he can't really tell if the sharp stabs across his body are just bruises or if he's actually like, really legit hurt.

Did he just free-fall down a _turbolift shaft_?

Given that he's still alive, the security protocols had to have kicked in somewhere before the bottom, forty stories down from the command Bridge, or he'd be in a lot more pieces right now even with Khan’s superblood and super-bone-structure and whatever-the-hell-else has kept him from getting killed on away missions so far. But he obviously fell far enough to do some damage, because he can see the looming black expanse of the shaft up above him and he doesn't remember the lift not having a roof on it. Somewhere, somehow, in the fall the durasteel framing shattered and the roof tore away – electrical shorts from the impacts burned out wiring and the couplings fell apart, maybe? Or there was a hull breach as he passed a deck and the resulting vacuum destroyed the bulkhead seals, warping the track the lift runs on. Judging from the fact that his back isn't broken, he's either super lucky or the emergency forcefields at least deployed to slow the free-fall before they too malfunctioned.

Because it's not supposed to be tilted at this angle either.

As he rolls back to a semi-sitting, semi-lying position, the lift shifts dangerously, whining a protest, and he hastily spreads his weight more evenly on hands and knees, shifting jagged pieces of transparisteel walls all around him. If this thing's balanced in the shaft without the aid of the emergency force fields, he has to get out and _fast,_ before it regains enough verticality to complete the free fall.

Breathing slowly and deeply to control the rising nausea doesn't appear to be an option, given that it feels like something is stabbing deep into his lungs, and given that the walls are in a billion pieces around him it's actually a good possibility that could be literal.

The floor creaks alarmingly under him, and he decides to move anyway; there's no possible way he can wait for Medical, and besides that, the fact that emergency lighting is blinking in the shaft means the Bridge is still on Red Alert. The ship is still in danger.

He's barely scrambled up and out, clinging to the side of the shaft like a monkey and then swinging over to the emergency ladder, before there's another pounding shudder of the ship around them. The lift teeters dangerously in the shaft a foot below his toes and then suddenly rocks a few degrees backward – then drops like a rock straight down, finally disappearing beneath his view in the chasm below. Seconds later there's a jarring thud that turns his stomach into a knotted mess.

He looks up, not down, so he doesn't throw up, and tries not to think about what might have happened if he hadn't woken up.

Coughing out a staggering breath, he wipes his face on one sleeve and then turns his head further as the red emergency lights illuminate the number painted on the wall of the shaft.

Deck Eight.

Well, it could have been worse.

He starts climbing.

* * *

The Bridge is in what looks like controlled chaos, hazed with smoke and a chorus of muffled orders that don't even pause when he pounds on the cracked and jammed turbolift doors with the hand not clinging to the ladder with a death-grip.

Uhura's the only one to see him, and one look at her shocked, then determined expression and he ducks below the floor level, face covered in his lower arms against the ladder. Over his head, the weakened door shatters completely under the force of her kick, and a moment later she's hauling him up over the jagged threshold with the help of a white-faced crewman from the Engineering station. Uhura slams a hand down on the button that will cover what’s now a yawing hole in the wall with a force-field, and thank goodness at least the manual overrides appear to still be working.

"At ease," he says automatically to the poor Engineering lieutenant, who has clearly never been on Bridge duty before and looks like he never wants to again, trembling and scared out of his mind. "Lieutenant, what –"

The Bridge rocks again with the force of another hit, and they stagger to keep their balance.

"Return fire, Mr. Sulu!" he can hear Spock's voice coming from the command center, and that's definitely desperation in it, with a hint of helplessness.

"Jim." Uhura says in his ear, over the sounds of a frenzied report from the navigation station, and the fact that he's never heard her use his first name on the Bridge makes him stop for just a second, mystified. "Comms have been jammed but the internal computer sensors haven't been."

"Meaning…"

Her eyes flicker to the rest of the Bridge crew, who are only just now starting to notice them amid the rest of the chaos, and then back again. "Never mind, just get to work." She swallows and shakes her head, lips compressed tightly as she turns back to her station.

Yeah, okay, he'll have to figure out that one later. He tugs carefully at his tunic to make sure it's not starting to show blood and then almost stumbles down the steps as the ship lurches again. Spock is bending over the navigation console, looking at something with Chekov, and so Jim is able to nonchalantly grab the command chair-arm for support.

"I do not know sir, if they will not respond to your hails and – and the Keptin is not awailable to negotiate with them, then I do not see an alternative! We have not the power now to warp away, not with the ventilation units malfunctioning as well."

"You'd better destroy them while we still have power to weapons, Commander, because I don't know how much longer I'll have that."

"I cannot condone the wholesale destruction of two ships full of innocent lives, Lieutenant, despite their clear indications of hostility. To do so would be both immoral, and an act of war against the Klingon Empire which could start a chain reaction that we have no hope of averting in Starfleet Command. I cannot make that decision."

"I can." His voice cracks over the Bridge like glass shattering, and it's almost funny how every head jerks up to stare at him.

Clear relief – and is that shock? – shines bright in all three sets of eyes at the front console. Spock clearly eyes him up and down as he carefully moves to stand in front of his chair – if he sits he probably won't get back up – but his First quickly snaps into battle mode, officer first and foremost.

"Sir, we were fired upon without warning when we were vulnerable following the complicated maneuver Lieutenant Sulu was forced to execute in order to avoid a collision with one of the formerly cloaked Birds of Prey. In the last forty-five minutes, we have been engaged in conflict with the two ships. We have succeeded in disabling the weaponry of one but have in the process been severely damaged by the other. Initial damage reports surprisingly low casualties but heavy damage to Engineering, specifically our navigational systems and the central computer core."

Forty-five minutes, that means he spent like twenty or thirty unconscious after that lift dropped. Probably not good.

Also not good, that they lasted that long against a Klingon warship, and that the Bird of Prey was targeting the computer core rather than the weapons systems. That means the Klingons are playing a game, likely that they want the _Enterprise_ herself rather than the glory of simply destroying her.

Over his dead body.

Preferably not literally, but it's the principle of the thing.

"Have they communicated at all?"

"We have made all usual attempts at both initial negotiation and then basic Starfleet-mandated defensive warnings, and they refused to communicate with anyone but yourself specifically, Captain." Spock's brow furrows. "When it was clear that was…impossible, they turned their attentions back toward acts of aggression and cut off communications."

"Fantastic." He sighs, and decides to sit just in case. And yeah, ow, that's something really sharp stuck somewhere sensitive. Arranging himself more carefully on the edge of the chair with one arm deceptively across his ribcage, he glances back at Uhura. "Open a channel to that ship, Lieutenant."

She nods and flicks a switch, obviously having anticipated this.

He turns the chair back to the screen and raises his voice. "Bird of Prey, this is Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation starship _Enterprise_. You have ten seconds to put a face to that command bridge or I send a photon torpedo into your warp core, _Sa'Qej_." (2)

Behind him, the ensign at the hydroponics station chokes on something, and Sulu wheels around in his chair, giving him the best WTF expression he's ever seen.

He shrugs. "I'm not in the mood, Mr. Sulu."

Spock's sigh as he passes on the way back to the science station is very telling, but Jim is distracted by the sudden appearance of a Klingon commander on the viewscreen. She appears to be unimpressed by him, which isn't really surprising.

_"Finally, you show your face, Kirk!"_

"Ironic, given that you're the one who's been firing on my ship without identifying yourself." He waves a bored hand. "Not sanctioned by your High Council, this little adventure of yours, is it?"

The female Klingon bares her teeth at him. _"We will return with honor, and your ship as a prize of war!"_

"Uh, no. We both know your government didn’t approve this attack of yours, I have the official documentation from them to prove it. Or are you not high enough in the ranks to have seen that yet?" A faint splutter from the enemy bridge. He rolls his eyes, shifts his weight in the chair. He needs to wrap this up, like yesterday. "And like I'm going to let you so much as sneeze on this ship. Who do I have the honor of addressing, anyway?"

 _"I am JajtaH, military General and Chief Scientist of the High Command,"_ she declares.

"…Right. And you thought it was smart to take on the Federation's flagship, in Federation space, by firing on it with no warning after dropping from a cloaked position in territory you are required by Federation and Klingon amnesty agreements to remain at least two hundred parsecs' distance from. I gotta say, I don't think much of your High Command if you're the best they have, Chief Scientist."

_"You were trespassing in **our** territory!"_

"I have instrumentational data and official reports that prove otherwise, General."

_"Then your instruments are wrong!"_

"Oh, come on, JajtaH. My First and Chief Science Officer is a _Vulcan_. Whose Chief Scientist do you think the Federation Dispute Council is going to believe?"

The female Klingon glances to the side for a moment in what looks like consternation. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath in very, very slow increments, and opens them again to see her whirl back toward the viewscreen, pounding a fist on the arm of the Klingon command chair.

_"Kirk, you lie. Our records and those of your own Starfleet clearly show you have a history of treachery and subterfuge! Do you deny this?"_

"Hell, no." A wave of titters sweeps across the Bridge, and he snorts at the look of surprise on his opponent's face. "Not really some huge secret you dug up there, General." He stands, only slightly wobbly, and slowly makes his way down the command dais, back up the front steps, until he's standing in front of the viewscreen, in full view of the Klingon general.

From behind him he hears someone's sharp inhale and a flurry of movement but he ignores it, folding his arms and planting his feet in front of the screen.

"Whatever dirt you dug up on me, it's probably true. But do me a favor, and look up one more thing in your history records, will you?" He gives the Klingon commander a dangerous smile, and sees nervous looks exchanged on the enemy Bridge. "Check what happened to the last three ships that came after the _Enterprise_ in battle. _Narada. Fesarius. Vengeance._ Those names mean anything to you?" (3)

JajtaH pales slightly.

"You really want to be number four?" He raises an eyebrow. "Whatever you may have read about me is probably true – but know this: I'm giving you one chance to leave my crew and my ship alone, and return to your neutral zone without retaliation from us."

_"And if we refuse?"_

"Then I am going to blow you out of the stars," he says quietly, deadly. "There will be no more loss of life on my ship today, General. You may decide for yourself, if there will be any aboard yours."

He glances backward, slicing a hand across his throat as he speaks, but Uhura is already on his wavelength and the viewscreen returns to a starry scape with two partially crippled enemy ships hovering nearby.

"Captain –"

"Not now, Mr. Sulu," he says absently, worrying at a knuckle as he keeps his eyes on the ships, waiting – for what, he doesn't know.

"But sir –"

"Sir, seriously, you really should –"

"Captain, the Klingon ships appear to be engaging their warp engines," Spock's voice cuts through the noise with the most welcome words in the world, and even before he's finished, the two Birds of Prey have vanished. Only a slight rocking motion as the two warp bubbles form and then collapse leaves any indication they were ever there at all.

Like he said earlier, bluffing is one of the two strategies they understand.

Nobody has to know he wasn't bluffing.

He exhales in a long, shaky breath. "Status report?"

"Damage reports coming in from all over the ship, but minimal casualties. And please, for the love of God sit down before you pass out, Captain." He blinks for a second at Uhura's outstretched hand in confusion, and then realizes that the sensation of warmth leaving him isn't just adrenaline – he's actually bleeding from somewhere, and that's probably why it hurt that much to climb all that way and then sit once he got here.

Given that his shirt seems to be sticking to his back, it's probably functioning as a bandage more than a tunic by now, and that's probably why everyone freaked when he put his back to the Bridge for the first time – he didn't hide it like he thought he did.

Quite logical, really.

Okay, when did he sit down? Lie down? Someone's yelling overhead for an ETA on something and it's making his ears ring.

"Oh…before I forget," he says, tugging on somebody's arm – probably Spock's, nobody else up here who wears blue would be that close to him right now and his head hurts too much to look up and verify the hypothesis. "Y'might wanna tell Scotty there's a smooshed turbolift at the bottom of the starboard Bridge shaft. My bad."

A choked giggle that sounds more like a sob from behind him. "Shut up, Captain. Spock, McCoy said ETA ten minutes, there's only one Jefferies tube route that is big enough for an anti-grav gurney."

"We have got to install some decent secondary systems, seriously. If they can all be knocked off-line like this, it's a serious design problem, Commander. Whoa, easy there, Captain. I don't think you want to try and lie down, sir."

" _Chyort_ , he climbed all the way up the shaft like this?"

He rolls his eyes, squints against the spinning lights. "Was only eight decks, Chekov. I got out before it crashed the second time."

The hand on his shoulder tightens slightly, and that has to be Spock's because his fingers are always ice cubes. He can't complain, though, since it's basically holding him upright right now. "Eight decks with a head injury and several large pieces of transparisteel embedded in your torso, Captain."

"I've had worse." He frowns, as that doesn't appear to make anyone feel better – if anything, they look more freaked. "Like, _literally_ had waaaay worse, guys. Chill."

Seriously, they all look like he's dying or something. And he should know, because, hello, been there, done that, got the coffee mug. But why d-

Oh. Uhura said the internal computer was working, and protocol dictates locating the captain first in a Red Alert. They'd checked his location – right _before_ the lifts all malfunctioned.

"Um. Sorry?" He winces as his tunic pulls on what has to be a shard of something, and then tries to stand up.

A flurry of arms in varying colors shove him back to his previous position, half-slumped on his side against the command chair.

Chekov's face appears in his vision, eyes huge and hair comically askew, and he stares at the kid in fascination.

"Keptin, you do not get to die on us twice, _da_? It is not – it is not _allowed_. We have all agreed on this."

"Uh…"

A hand smacks the back of his head. "Shut up, you get no say."

"Ow! Head injury, Lieutenant! Spock, help me out here, buddy."

"Even were I not in agreement with the Lieutenant's sentiments, Captain, I am not so foolish as to side with you over her."

He shakes his head, grinning, as the less experienced members of the Bridge crew go totally bug-eyed at the sight of their stoic First Officer making an honest-to-God _joke_.

"Wise man." As the pounding in his head increases, his hand tightens slightly on his First's arm. _Sorry for scaring you. Again._

Spock's lips quirk slightly, and he knows the confused thought had to have made its way through the touch somehow, so that's a win at least. The next one comes in the form of a flurry of panicked activity at the Jefferies tube entrance, where a swarm of medical personnel suddenly erupt with _way_ more fanfare than necessary.

He's not the only one that got clocked something good during the battle, but he's by far the only one really bleeding everywhere up here, so he gets the good drugs and the special treatment and two days of transfusions and then two more of light duty because he has to be a special snowflake with a rare blood type (very, very rare, as in non-existent in anybody currently not cryo-frozen rare).

But a week later, he is ready to swagger back onto his Bridge, good as new, and just a little more humble than before. He isn't going to forget, not for a while, the looks and the stares and the visits and the gifts and everything else he's gotten the last week – all from people who were crewmen during the _Vengeance_ debacle. He scared them all, pretty bad this time, and he honestly can't believe just how much they all _care_.

It shouldn't surprise him, how much – but it does, and they deserve better. He will give them that, even if it takes all of this mission and the next and the next.

He says as much to Spock the next morning in a rambling monologue, honestly just to keep his mind off the fact that they are riding in a brand-new turbolift and he's really really really really trying to not think about that in particular. Spock nods solemnly (weird), makes some random supportive comment (weirder), and then when they arrive, gestures for him to precede his First out of the lift (way weirder).

Ooookay. He shakes his head and walks onto the Bridge, and then just about pees himself as Spock's booming voice from behind him announces _"Captain on the Bridge"_ in literally the loudest non-shout he's ever heard from a Vulcan.

The two crewmen nearest the lift both jump half out of their chairs, one giving a little _meep_ of terror, and he can hear Uhura's cackling halfway across the Bridge at the comms station. Chekov and Sulu high-five each other and give Spock a thumbs-up, while his First merely ignores them all, seats himself at the Science station and begins to pull up the day's reports, looking unaccountably smug.

Okay, he is definitely outlawing that.

As soon as he can stop laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Montgomery Scott says at some point in TOS, that the best diplomatic argument he knows of is a fully loaded phaser bank. (meaning I don't own that phrase, lol)  
> (2) Literally, the Klingon word for jackass, a very mild expletive  
> (3) Fesarius was the name of the attacking ship in the TOS episode Corbomite Maneuver, which they did not end up destroying but rather defeating by a huge and ridiculous bluff; but I am operating under the assumption that this universe is a little darker, a little unhappier, than the OS universe. My apologies to the single crewmember of the poor TOS Fesaurius.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Obviously the background plot of this is ripped off of the TOS episode This Side of Paradise; I don't own those elements, what few there are.

III.

In retrospect, it wasn't his brightest idea.

Not that bright ideas are his particular specialty anyway, but he'd like to think that after everything that's happened, everything they've been through…he'd like to think that he's a little older, a little wiser – a little more careful, a lot more grateful.

Eighteen months out from their relaunch, he's a little closer to some of his crew; losing two-thirds of them in one fell swoop will do that to a man. And he's a little more distant from some, through their choice or his; because protection goes both ways, and no one wants a repeat of what happened just before the Battle of Yorktown. Their world crashed around them, all those months ago, and he doesn't fault anyone for being a little slower to make friends, to develop relationships. No one expected a soul-wrenching loss of that scale, least of all him, and it's changed him as much as those who really run his beautifully refurbished _Enterprise_.

The new crew don't quite understand this, but they are bright and eager and the best of the best; and they all move on, as befits Starfleet. They are not children anymore, and they comport themselves as the competent officers they are consistently becoming.

Time and loss have changed them all. As captain, nearly finished with the five-year mission, he has made many more friends, and quite a few more enemies, both inside and outside of Starfleet. Both are equally dangerous, and equally inevitable. (He has been called a 'polarizing influence' by both ally and enemy alike, and it's pretty much accurate.)

But judging from very recent events, he may have made a fatal mistake, and grown too close or else too distant from some very important people aboard his ship as well.

Familiarity breeds contempt, and he always has been a little too inclined to both, depending on whom you ask.

God, what a mess.

He's only just managed to send off a highly-abbreviated and even more highly-edited report of the entire mission (making a memo to the rest of his senior staff to _for pity's sake_ don't send their own reports without checking them against his, last thing they need's for conflicting details to make their way back through to Starfleet HQ) when – thank the deities of several neighboring planets – his door sensor chimes, heralding what he hopes will soon be relief.

"You know I don't do house calls, right," Bones growls, practically shoving him aside before the cabin door even finishes its noiseless slide. The corridor beyond is still eerily quiet, as if the ship herself is hiding in embarrassment over what's happened aboard and ashore the last few hours. "And if you think I'm gonna let you get away with not coming to Sickbay if you need it, you got another think coming, Jim. I'm a doctor, not a drug dealer."

He laughs, even if it rings a little hollow from pain and fatigue. "C'mon, Bones, not like you have anything else to do tonight."

"Uh-huh." Bones looks unimpressed that he's been working at his desk, and points him toward his bunk instead. It's not worth fighting over, so he steers clear of the workstation and obediently wanders that direction. "Sit. Now what'm I looking at?"

"It's not the end of the worl-"

"I'll be the judge of that. What do you _need_ , Jim." The irritation has vanished in the wake of his face probably losing all color when he collapses more than sits, nausea flaring in a sickening wave.

"Well…hopefully for you to tell me it's not as bad as it looks. Feels. Whatever." He gingerly unbuttons the cardigan he'd left loosely fastened around his torso while off duty tonight, and he can tell Bones only just now noticed he's been working with one hand.

"Stop." Cold hands, damn the man, but they're fast at least, and it's a matter of moments before his left arm is finally freed from the knitwear. His CMO takes one look at the appendage and turns a weird shade of gray.

Okay, not good.

"So, it _is_ as bad as it feels, then. Fantastic."

"Jim, you should have come straight to Sickbay with this." McCoy's fingers hover uncertainly over the swollen, hastily splinted limb, as if almost unsure where to touch. And if _he's_ not sure, then it's, like, epic levels of bad.

"And when exactly would I have had time to do that? The Medical staff didn't even beam back aboard until like three hours ago, anyway, and half of them were still a little high from those spores. This whole thing was one big SNAFU from start to finish, Bones, and someone had to clean it up."

"Not arguing that, Jim, but…wait a minute." And there it comes; McCoy is no idiot, that much was clear from the moment they met. The doctor's a near-genius himself, and in moments like this, when lives are in question, it shows. "Those spores actually stamped out violent emotions, so this couldn't have happened on the planet; it had to have happened after you beamed back aboard with the infected landing party."

"So?"

"So, you said you and Spock and Uhura managed to break through the plants' influence and come up with a plan. Or was Uhura just covering for you when she said you just barely stopped her from sabotaging the comms boards beyond repair?"

He bites his lip with a stifled whimper as Bones maneuvers the arm just a fraction, sending a streak of fire all the way into his neck and shoulder. "She did a pretty good job of frying the Bridge console, but I caught her before she took apart the primary units in Engineering. I'd figured out that violent emotions were what broke the influence and I got through to her by challenging her ability to perform her job in the Fleet. She got so pissed when I compared her to the Comms Chief of the _Reliant_ that it finally broke the euphoria, burned out the spores' influence."

"And after that?"

"She got Spock to come back to the ship. You know the rest."

"Not hardly. And she's not talkin'."

"She doesn't know most of it. And it's going to stay that way."

Fingers tighten claw-like on the back of his neck. "He broke your arm, didn't he."

"Bones, it wasn't like that –"

"That green-blooded son of a bitch broke your _arm_ , Jim. In three places, by the looks of it!"

Well, that explains the lurking urge to throw up every time he moves, and why the limb looks more like a homemade pretzel than actual human anatomy.

"It's not that simple, Bones. For one thing, he was under the influence of something given to him without his consent. It's not like he wanted to be running around being Finding Emo." He sighs in relief as a hypospray of what has to be prescription-strength painkiller releases something beautiful into his bloodstream. "For another thing, I kind of provoked him. On purpose. Multiple times."

Bones presses the heels of his palms into both eyes.

"It's like an art form by now, y'know. I'm really good at it."

"You're good at destroying things, kid. Including yourself." Bones hauls him to his feet, and he frowns, because his head shouldn't be this fuzzy. He didn't want that heavy of a painkiller yet. "And that's something you just can't keep doing, not if you're gonna stay captain of this flying tin can for another five years, you hear me?"

"Uh, yeah. You're yelling. Pretty sure they can hear you on Beta Canaris."

"Oh, darlin', you have _not_ heard me yell yet. That'll come after I'm dead sure you haven't lost all circulation to that arm. Now, move your feet. _Sickbay_. You'll be lucky if I let you out in the next week."

"Not acceptable. We have seventy colonists to evacuate along with the rest of the crew, and the decon procedures haven't even been completed yet for those beaming aboard. Berthold radiation is not something we can mess with."

He avoids brushing up against the turbolift doors as they close, and breathes a sigh of relief once he's hidden from any crewman's curious eyes. The wall of the lift is pleasantly cool against the back of his head, even if the lights spin in dizzying whirliques that signify Bones's painkiller is beginning to really do its job. "We have orders for evac procedures to Starbase Twenty-Seven and I need to be functional to carry those out until the ship's out of immediate danger. That's an _order_ , Bones."

"With respect, you can _shove_ your orders, _Captain_ , because if you think I'm going to let you run around this ship like that –"

"You can and you will," he snaps, diamond-tip through glass, and McCoy glares at him. "And you will not breathe a word of this to Spock or anyone else."

"Jim, I can't just run a bone-knitter over this for a few hours and let you go, this is serious."

"Fine, then put it in a soft cast until I can get us out of here and the whole mess is behind us, but that's what I need you to do. Look, Bones – you're gonna have to get used to this." He pats his worried CMO on the shoulder, trying to hide a grimace at the pain the movement produces. "Once we head out on that second mission it'll be totally uncharted space, months between a space station or another Federation outpost. And things are gonna happen."

"Not helpin' your argument, Jim. You think I'm looking forward to being the only thing standing between this many lives and the unknown, out here in this godforsaken part of the galaxy? And anyway –" McCoy breaks off as the intercom chimes, summoning him. "McCoy here."

 _"Sulu, Doctor."_ Jim frowns, because there's something weird about the guy's voice, he just can't quite put his finger on what. _"You've been requested to attend an officers' briefing in Briefing Room Two in ten minutes, sir."_

"I'm a little busy, Lieutenant." McCoy rolls his eyes and avoids the (non-broken) elbow aimed his direction. Jim does wonder, though, why he wasn't the first one summoned, and guesses Uhura is trying to give him as much time as possible off his feet.

_"It's not optional, Doctor. All senior command staff must be present."_

Jim raises an eyebrow at that, because if it's a Priority Two or higher then he should have been notified immediately, and that's a serious breach of protocol that Spock would never have let happen if he'd been in command. Obviously he's not on the Bridge either, likely because Uhura's trying to give them both time off until the last moment.

"Fine, whatever. I'll be there as soon as I can." McCoy growls, punches the comm-switch as Sulu's acknowledgment filters over the line, and side-eyes him. "You're gettin' a soft cast first at least, no arguing."

"Believe me, no arguing," he replies, smiling thinly.

* * *

He follows his CMO into the room with a straight back and calm expression due only to some fairly heavy drugs and a mild stimulant that he's going to regret swiping from Bones's private stash later, but he needs to be alert for whatever fresh mess this is and he can't be that from a bio-bed or flat on his back on the floor, curled in a fetal position like he wants to be.

Ah, the responsibilities of that Captain Image.

Pike had never told him it _sucked_ this much, sometimes.

Weirdly enough, the room stops dead silent when he walks in, and he squints, thought processes slowed considerably by the painkillers. What the hell?

"Uh." Scott's unhappy murmur is accompanied by a nervous squirm and screeeeek of shifting chair. "Not part of the plan. So what exactly was Plan B, then?"

"Want to run that by me again without the code words?" He yanks the chair out from the head of the table and makes a controlled dive into it, gritting his teeth against the explosion of fireworks in his vision. "Explain, Mr. Scott. Why are you leading this meeting, and where's Commander Spock?"

"Uh. Sir. Well, y'see, sir. That's sort of…why we're here. Sir. Captain. I mean, it's not exactly easy to explain."

Exasperated, he turns to Uhura, whose eyes are red-rimmed like she's been either crying or not sleeping or both, and she just pinches her forehead like she has a migraine and gives him a helpless look. He knows the feeling.

"Okay, people, I want explanations, and I want them now." He nails his alpha shift pilot and prospective future captain trainee with narrowed eyes, and is pleased to see him shift nervously. "Spill it, Sulu."

"Well. It's like this, Captain."

"Do I need to demote someone to get answers here, people? Because I'm about to. What is going _on_. And if this is a mandatory officers’ briefing, why the _hell_ were the captain and first officer not notified." Okay, so his temper gets short when he’s in pain, whatever. He’s pissed.

Uhura finally lowers her hands and exhales, and he can see the calm of an officer being put back on like a uniform – she's about to report as a Starfleet lieutenant, not Spock's whatever-they-call-themselves-now.

"Spock's confined himself to quarters, Captain," she finally says, just as Jim's about to lose his patience completely.

He blinks, and swivels his chair back toward her, boot-toes squeaking aimlessly on the polished flooring. "Okaaaaay," he says slowly. "Any particular reason?"

"Because I uncovered this, sir," Scott speaks up quietly, from the other end of the table. He flicks on the floating overhead vid-screen, and what looks like surveillance footage begins to play.

He half-stands, fists on the table. "How did you –"

"It's not his fault, Captain," Uhura interjects quickly, hand on his wrist. Ow ow ow _ow_. She jerks it back a second later, obviously feeling the rough cast underneath the braid on his sleeve, and looks more guilty than before. She presses onward a second later, however, eyes flashing him an unspoken apology. "He was repairing the damage I did in Engineering and came across anomalies in the data banks, thought it was more of my sabotage. You didn't do a good enough job of scrubbing the files from the transporter room's surveillance footage."

Well, crap.

"It's not what it looks like," he sighs, leaning back in the chair with a hand over his eyes for a moment.

"Uh, no offense, sir, but it _looks_ pretty bad," Sulu says pointedly.

"I havena doubt there’s an explanation, sir. God knows we all did things under the influence of those blasted plants that we would rather forget." Scott shrugs helplessly. "But, well –"

"When Spock saw it he freaked," Uhura says bluntly. At the chorus of scoffs and incredulous looks, she rolls her eyes. "Look, we all know that _Vulcan Way_ business goes out the airlock where Kirk’s concerned, don’t give me that. Anyway, he says he assaulted a Starfleet officer and he should be court-martialed. It took me three hours to convince him not to go lock himself up in the brig."

"Oh, for God's sake." His head hits the table briefly, and he groans. Deities of the universe save him from stupidly loyal First Officers.

From his right, he hears a stifled, nervous giggle from who can only be Chekov, who has been oddly silent and scared this whole conversation. Jim can't tell if it's leftover uncertainty from the spores or because he's afraid his mentor is about to be shipped back to New Vulcan on the next freighter out, but it's disconcerting. He finally sighs and sits back up, wishing he'd taken Bones up on that stronger painkiller.

"Jim, he –" A slicing motion with his hand, and Bones subsides, surprisingly with only an understanding nod. They've come a long way, if he can command that amount of trust in something like this. He owes his friend, big time. And not just for the good drugs.

A problem for a different, less exhausting day.

"Captain, I know it looks bad but –"

"Bad? It looks like he's tryin' ta _kill_ the bloody man! Under alien influence or not, that's a mite more than just a 'disagreement' like we were told in the reports!"

"Scotty, chill."

"But sir!"

"He's insisting he be transferred immediately upon our arrival at Starbase BC-18, Captain," Uhura says softly.

"Like hell he is." He scowls, and reaches over with his good hand to slap at the intercom button, ignoring the flabbergasted and/or confused expressions of his command staff. "This is your captain speaking. Commander Spock, report immediately to Briefing Room Two or I will personally drag your ass down here." From somewhere down the hall he hears a distant peal of laughter, and realizes he accidentally hit the shipwide comm instead of the private channel.

Ehh. So much the better, if that video footage is accessible to any idiot in Ops who has Level Three surveillance clearance. Best he stamp out any rumors at their source.

His command staff is staring at him like he's totally lost his mind. "What?" he demands.

Uhura looks like she can't decide whether to laugh or cry, and if he's not mistaken she has relaxed considerably. Did she really think he was going to do something like demote and transfer Spock over this? Surely she knows him better after all these years.

"Captain…"

"You didn't really think I was going to do anything to him, did you?" he asks, incredulous.

But she is also an officer, first and foremost, on this ship, and he appreciates that – always has. Now, she gives him a pointed look. "Sir, what he did could be considered a serious assault against a Starfleet officer, like he said."

"Why do you think I sent you out of the room before I brought his _dead planet_ into the conversation?" He drags a weary hand down his face. "There's no way in hell I'd let him direct that mess at a subordinate, and especially one he's involved with romantically."

He hears a sharp inhale from his other side, and knows Bones has made the connection he wasn't about to voice aloud – that he knows far too well what being on the bad end of an abusive relationship feels like. Uhura stares at him for a moment in blank consternation as the room falls awkwardly silent. The rest of his staff shift uneasily, glancing at each other and then back toward him, but he's pleased to see they look more concerned than anything else. They've grown, this weird little family of theirs, and they're basically past the point of hiding dirty laundry. There are no secrets in space, so they might as well not bother trying to hold on to them.

He doesn't really have the energy to try right now, anyway.

Bones's padd goes off with a medical alert, and he moves to the wall comm to get details from Sickbay – someone triggered a Blue Alert when the decon procedures were engaged upon beam-up from the planet – and the table drifts into chatter for a moment as they unofficially break. Jim glances sideways, uncertainty warring with unapology as he looks at his Comms Chief.

Uhura rolls her eyes, and leans toward him.

"Captain."

"Yeah?"

He shrinks back as her eyes suddenly spark dark fury. He's personally seen junior officers almost wet themselves in terror when that look's directed at them, and even if he's not really afraid of her after all this time it's still hella scary.

"Don't _ever_ do something that stupid again," she snaps, giving his shoulder a gentle punch. He bites back a yelp, and blinks at her in shock. "I can defend myself just as well as the next Starfleet officer –"

"Better," Sulu interjects helpfully.

"Thank you, Mr. Sulu," he returns with a withering glare.

"And you do not get to assume anything about my relationships!"

"Understood! Jesus, can you _not_ touch the arm?" She seems to realize he hasn't really had proper medical attention and subsides, whereupon he protectively cradles his wrist closer to himself, glaring at her. "Booooones."

"You get no sympathy from me. She can kick Spock's ass and you should've let her." Bones rams a hypospray into his neck as he passes and depresses the mechanism with practiced ease, ignoring Jim's yelp of pain. Relief floods him a minute later, sharp and cool and so very welcome. "Now. You got fifteen minutes to kiss and make up with the hobgoblin and then you hit me up for a bone-knitting session, understood? I gotta go see to this idiot who beamed up with a spore colony infesting his nasal passages."

Already yawning, Jim makes a half-drugged shooing motion over one shoulder as his CMO reaches the doors, which open at his approach.

"Speak of the devil. I'll have a word with _you_ later, don't think I won't. You’re still dead to me."

Bony finger impacts blue tunic with vicious intent and then the physician disappears around the corner, his figure soon replaced in the doorway by that of their reluctant First Officer.

"Meester Spock!"

"Sit down, Commander," Jim directs calmly, and Spock's eyes flicker to his gesturing left hand before returning to the floor.

"I would prefer to stand. Sir."

"And I'd prefer to be on Rigel IX with a drink and exotic dancer or two but we don't always get what we want, now do we. Now sit. _Down_."

Spock sits, almost hilariously quickly, and folds his hands on the table before him.

"So. What's this I hear about you wanting to transfer off the ship?"

"My transfer request has already been made. I would prefer to finish the remainder of this mission on a different vessel."

Well, he dead sure didn't sign off on that so Spock would have had to go over his head; and he'll bet his last year's salary that Uhura never let the paperwork leave the ship. She's proven herself exceptionally adept at sabotage, lately.

"Yeah, well, that's not happening." Spock's eyebrows draw together in the first expression he's seen – that of annoyance. Gooood. "Look, I'm not training another First and Chief Science Officer this late in the game, Spock. How is that logical, to leave us in the lurch like that with only a few months left on the five-year mission? That’s just a dick move."

"Then the transfer will be effective as of the second mission."

"And on what grounds, exactly, did you request this transfer? Because it had to have been something whopping important for you to think the brass will approve it over my head."

Spock shifts uneasily.

"He cited _dangerous and potentially compromising differences_ _between commanding officers_ as his reason, Captain," Uhura interjects, ignoring the glare she receives for the information.

"Huh." He shrugs. "Okay, fair enough."

Spock blinks.

"Of course, I would have thought as a Vulcan, you'd be immune to the human responses of fearing danger and emotional compromise…and that you'd embrace the concept of strength in difference since it’s, you know, _one of your Vulcan doctrines_ …but what do I know."

Spock's lips thin in annoyance.

"Anyhow. Garcia's been after me forever to exchange a few crew-members, and his Chief Science Officer is an Andorian specializing in astrophysics. That'll be our focus for the second mission so that works out in our favor anyway."

Chekov's eyes look like they're about to pop out of his head, and even Scotty is staring at him like he's just proposed flying into the nearest black hole under half-impulse power.

"Lieutenant, you still have that last packet that came through from Command Central?"

"Yes, Captain." The _WTF are you playing at_ , is quite clear in the silence that follows.

"Good, good. There were two applicants for command positions in there that I'd originally discarded, I'll need you to retrieve those for my perusal early tomorrow." From the corner of his eye, he sees Spock's expression darken. "If I remember correctly, one was Admiral Decker's younger son; the kid's apparently a stellar navigator and is just coming off duty in the alpha quadrant."

"Matthew Decker's scores in Starfleet Academy were barely in the upper fortieth percentile of his graduating class, Captain."

"Well, we can't all be impossible test programmers, Mr. Spock," he replies with a beatific smile.

Across the table, Sulu coughs abruptly into his sleeve and then finds something on his padd to be extremely interesting.

"The role of First Officer of the flagship is a position which must be filled with one capable of maintaining the daily operations of said ship while still performing the duties expected of one in the senior chain of command. In addition, that candidate must be able to effectively perform his two most important responsibilities; to lead a landing party or diplomatic mission in the absence of the ship's captain, and to advise the captain on command matters when necessary."

He folds his arms, then winces and unfolds them, settling for tapping the fingers of his good hand on the table instead. "Gee, Spock, I had no idea. You'd think that person should be hand-picked by the captain or something."

Spock's ears turn a peculiar shade of viridian.

"Look," Jim finally says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I am still like, so pissed at you it's not even funny, and once I'm _not_ then we can talk about this mess." A muffled snort from his other side which he ignores. "But there's no way in the universe that I am going to let you leave this ship without a battle you are going to have a hell of a time winning, Commander. You really should know better."

Spock looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time since he broke free of the spores' influence in the transporter room and realized what he'd done – and actually, honest-to-god slumps slightly in his chair, obviously in surrender or relief or an all-too-human combination of both.

If Jim's arm wasn't killing him and if he wasn't still mad as hell, he would have more sympathy. Spock's lucky he's the closest thing to family Jim has left in the universe, now.

And, as with all family, he does want to _murder_ the guy sometimes. Like now.

Finally he stands, wobbling only slightly, and ignores the look of alarm that makes its combined way around the table. Moving toward the door, he pauses just as it slides open, and half-turns on one heel.

"Get back to the Bridge, people, I don't want those trainees at the alpha stations when we break orbit under Berthold radiation bombardment. Scotty, I expect that footage to disappear in the next hour, understood?"

"What footage, sir?"

That's more like it. They really are becoming a family, this strange little band of wonderful, crazy, beautiful people. It'll take a lot more than some bizarre, euphoria-inducing plant spores to break that magical bond apart for more than a few hours.

And after all, what's a family without a couple of supercharged, furniture-breaking fights now and then?

It's almost…reassuringly normal.

For this ship, at least.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Obviously the few elements you recognize from Trouble with Tribbles are not mine. 
> 
> Rather than embellishing upon the way over-used Tarsus angle, I chose to keep it background here, especially since we have zero indications in screen AOS canon as to whether or not it even occurred in the AOS timeline.

II.

In retrospect, it's sort of funny.

Until it isn't.

Okay, it's still funny, even if at the time it caused a major freak-out in Medical and scared Bones half to death and nearly dropped them dead in space and jacked up every system on board before they managed to get it under control and then laid bare a portion of his life he didn't want anyone finding out about to everyone in his command staff and oh hey, did he mention the freaking out?

But it was still pretty damn funny.

Because, like, who else in the entire 'Fleet can say their ship's been hijacked by an army of mutant zombie tribbles?

* * *

It starts, abruptly enough, one day while he's making inspection rounds on the lower decks, a habit he hasn't broken throughout many years. Shipwalks keep him connected to his crew, and keep those boundaries lowered enough that they remain far more close-knitted than other crews he knows. Others might call the lack of formality too familiar, but the results speak for themselves and no psychologist in the Fleet would argue with the unusually high-scoring psych profiles of the _Enterprise_ officers, both ranking and lower decks.

But on this memorable morning, he's summoned to Bio-Medical Lab Two by one of Spock's Xenobio technicians, an anomaly in itself. He rarely inspects those labs simply because he drives Spock (and his equally obsessive people) nuts when he does, and it's a rare occurrence for him to be directly requested to oversee something so outside his usual arena. The fact that the tech sounded stressed isn't overly unusual, but there was something alarming in the tone that produces an instinctual feeling of unease which hastens his steps on Deck Fifteen until he hurries into the lab, glancing around for the cause of the controlled chaos he sees going on around him.

Not a good sign, both his XOs are bent over an examination table on the far side of the room, engrossed in deep discussion, and a harried-looking medical tech points him that direction with what looks like a laser scalpel, then scurries away after snatching a clipboard and set of medical-grade bio-containers from a nearby cabinet.

Ooookay.

There's no blue lights flashing, meaning no biocontaminent alert, and besides even he would have been summoned had there been a Blue Alert sounded this morning; but something's obviously happened – something alarming enough for both branches of his Sciences to have their head officers working in sync without so much as a raised voice to be heard. They both glance up at his approach, and the look that flickers between them tells him more than their awkward silence.

Then he sees the table behind them, and it doesn't take a PhD in Xenobiology or Psychology to make the leap of logic they obviously have.

Seriously, as a ship they should win an award for being the living mechanical embodiment of Murphy's Law or something.

* * *

"I said, I don't know yet! All the tests indicate there's nothing wrong with its platelet count, plasma readings, biometric tags, all other indicators we used when coming up with that damn serum those years ago. There's no reason it should be dead!"

He sighs, leans back in his chair, tells himself the headache he feels coming on is entirely normal and not at all a phantom pain indicating organ failure. "Bones, sit down before you have an aneurism, will you? I feel fine."

"So did that tribble, until this morning!"

"Well, I'm not going to just drop dead on you so stop freaking out your staff and start acting like my Lieutenant-Commander of Medical for a minute!" He inhales slowly, releases the fear lurking at the back of his mind at the unknown. Surely, there would have been warning signs by now? "Look, you and Spock are already doing everything you can to figure out if whatever happened is going to translate on a larger scale so you have to chill. Seriously. Until those tests are complete you can't do anything else."

"It's my _job_ to do something! You do understand we're a good three-week warp journey from any even backspace medical facility, Jim? If you keel over on me with some blood-degeneration disease that I can't fix in a lab you're a dead man!"

"I'm telling you, I feel fine! Look, tribbles don't live as long as humans anyway, do they? So it probably just died of old age!"

"Actually, they live a lot longer." Well, crap. "Yeah. I'm scared, Jim. I dunno what happened to it but if that serum is starting to break down..."

"But why would it break down now? And even if it does, it's not like irradiation just like magically reverses itself. I should be _fine_."

"In theory, no, the effects of irradiation shouldn't reverse themselves – but if the serum is breaking down it could leave inert matter in your blood and that can cause blood clots, fevers, severe infection, organ failure – all kinds of complications I can't just magically fix without knowing how the unknown properties of the _untested serum_ reacted to your body in the first place. You weren't healthy even before that all went down, and God knows how your body could react if something this big goes haywire inside it. We're talking _cancer of the blood_ big, Jim."

That's cheerful.

He runs an uneasy hand through his hair, wondering idly if this nervous habit was the reason he decided years ago to grow it out slightly. If it starts graying prematurely (a very real possibility, on this ship) he's dead sure not keeping it like this. "You're sure you didn't just like, accidentally starve it to death? You don't ever feed the poor thing."

"You _do_ know what happens if you feed a tribble more than once a week, right?"

"I'm just asking!" He glances over at the desk-comm when it whistles. "You gonna get that? It's probably Spock. And if he's acting like you then Uhura's probably about to choke him out in his sleep."

"Gimme a minute." Bones slams down the glass he'd been about to pour – totally against regulation since they're both on duty but it's not like Jim's going to report him, not right now – and moves to the unit, depressing the switch with a sigh. His head hangs low between his shoulders as he leans with both hands on the desk. "McCoy here."

 _"Doctor, we have a…problem."_ Spock's voice, and the hesitation, make them both look at each other in confused alertness.

"Specify, Mr. Spock." McCoy reaches for his data-padd. "What kind of problem?"

A long pause. _"It would appear that this animal is…not entirely deceased."_

"It what."

Jim reaches over his semi-frozen CMO to depress the comm-switch himself. "Spock, I saw the readings myself, what are you talking about?"

 _"Captain."_ The title is enough, after all these years, to indicate Spock's slight surprise (and annoyance) to find him unexpectedly on the other end of the communications. _"I regret to inform you that the…animal, appears to have…"_

He raises an eyebrow at the connection. "You gonna spit that out sometime today, Commander?"

_"The animal has apparently escaped its confines in Science Lab Two, sir."_

"It WHAT." Bones apparently is only capable of repeating those two words for now. Jim motions for him to go ahead and leave the office and he hightails it out, already scribbling notes on his padd. A trio of nurses scatter nervously in his wake before the doors to the office close again, hiding the outer ward from Jim's view.

"Bones is heading your direction, Spock. What are you talking about, it _escaped_? I saw the readings myself, the thing had no life functions and it was stone cold to the touch. Don't tell me you _and_ three of your techs have faulty equipment; we are already over our requisition requests for the month and HQ will have my head if it's not something a software patch can fix."

_"Captain, I have no logical explanation for the event at the moment other than the simple fact that the animal is no longer within the containment unit in which it was placed twenty-four hours ago by none other than myself. And I can personally attest to the fact that it was, indeed, at that time deceased."_

Great. "So you're saying we have a runaway zombie tribble loose on board my ship, Mr. Spock?"

A very long, very pointed pause _. "I said nothing of the kind. Sir. I merely stated –"_

"Never mind, Spock, never mind. Get with Bones and report to me when you actually have something. Kirk out." He sighs, and flops back into Bones's chair, starts bringing up the ship's sensor banks and tying them into the medical mainframe so they can be accessed remotely from the Science labs.

He personally thinks the zombie tribble theory has more merit than Spock is giving him credit for, but maybe he's just overreacting.

And on this ship? It's very rarely, _over_ reacting.

* * *

He still has Bridge duty, beta shift today to observe some new candidates for alpha shift, regardless of whether or not Bones thinks he should be pulling his full duties due to unknown potential factors here, and so he goes about that as if nothing abnormal has happened or is possibly happening below decks, offering the excuse of a special project in the labs for Spock's absence on the Bridge to observe the blueshirts.

There's no sense in inciting panic about possibilities that may not even happen, and his controlled fear does not need to be spread to anyone else aboard. They will remain condition normal, and he will not give in to the panic he feels as the hours tick by with no update from Medical or Science or either of the two people he trusts most in charge of those two divisions of his ship.

But he shouldn't have bothered with the facade, because gossip spreads fast on a starship.

And apparently, even that doesn't spread as fast as a procreating zombie tribble.

Beta shift is only half over when the ship's autocomputer emergency-drops them out of warp straight into an ion storm, and between malfunctioning systems all over the ship and his First Officer being below decks when it happens he's seriously handicapped on the Bridge trying to maneuver them out of danger on whatever power a panicked Scotty can salvage from the engine shutdown.

He's only just managed to calm down the freaked ensign at the Engineering console, who had at first thought he'd somehow bumped a button that flung them out of warp, when an ominous sparking noise draws his attention to the Environmental Control console next to them. The screen is fritzing in a manner he has never seen before, and there's a weird tingling sensation almost building in the very air, making his hair stand on end.

He shoves the young Fellustarian engineer up the steps and then hauls the frowning EC lieutenant out of her chair just before the console explodes in their faces. Stars pinwheel in his vision as his head impacts his own chair way too hard, and then he hits the deck with enough force that he can't breathe for a second, staring up at what is undoubtedly a rapidly-cracking durasteel ceiling and they are really, _really_ in trouble if they can't get some shielding up against this ion storm. The viewscreen is screeching dangerously under the pressure buildup, or maybe that's just his head, but either way it's got to stop.

Above the ringing in his ears, he can hear Chekov's high-pitched shrilling of directions from the Science station, and even as two techs lean over him he can see that Sulu's already in the central chair and snapping out orders for them to haul ass out of the storm with all available speed. Two other gold-shirted personnel have already slid into place at the helm and he can feel the floor shuddering underneath them as Scotty's magic is somehow worked in engineering. They begin to move again.

"- a medical team up here now, the captain's down. And I said full reverse power, Mr. Nowitz!"

"Aye, sir!" A strained rumble underneath them.

"Chekov, where am I at on those thrusters?"

"One more moment, they had to reboot when that surge went through!"

"Fire them all in reverse as soon as they're booted up, we have to get out of this thing before it pulls the ship apart."

"Full reverse, aye!”

"Mr. Scott, I need those deflector shields modified for maximum dispersal and make sure they stay on. And get that core back online or get us moving on full impulse, now."

_"We're already running on half impulse, laddie, and I canna perform a cold-core start on the core without a formula we dinna have time to come up with right now. If I try to give ye full impulse I run the risk of another power surge up there."_

"I don't care if you have to shut off power to everything except navigation and life support up here, get us out of this _now_ , Mr. Scott, before something else explodes in our faces or we lose a nacelle! Sir, are you hurt?"

He shakes his head, nods a thank-you to the worried crewmen who had helped him up. They give him only a cursory nod before diving back to the library and secondary communications station as alarms start wailing across the Bridge. The EC lieutenant – Tamura, he now remembers, now that his brain's slowly bouncing back where it's supposed to be – looks pale as death but she hops back to the remains of the still-smoking console like the officer she is and begins inspecting the damage. The power flickers briefly on the Bridge, then comes back on.

"I'm fine, just got the wind knocked out of me." He raises his voice briefly, glancing around the Bridge. "All of you switch to auxiliary systems as soon as you’re rebooted, though. That ion storm is wrecking our circuits." Shaking the film out of his vision, he grabs the arm of his chair and finally finds his footing firm again as the shaking levels out – they're on the edges of the storm now. It's been probably two years since they had to ride out a storm like that, and he remembers now why he usually takes the long way around; even a constitution-class starship isn't equipped for that kind of turbulence, and especially one that's already having mechanical failures due to factors unknown.

"What did we hit, sir?"

"I have no idea," he sighs, resuming his seat as Sulu vacates it, sliding back into place at the helm. "That was the computer that dropped us out of warp, not someone in Engineering; I can feel the difference when that happens. Some security protocol had to have shut us down."

 _"How's it looking up there, Bridge?"_ Scott's voice crackles through his armrest.

"We lost the Environmental Control console and you cracked my viewscreen, Scotty. You know what happens to people who break my ship."

_"Your ship! Sir, it was your precious ship that decided to drop us out of warp smack in the middle of a bloody ion storm. Take it up with her!"_

He chuckles, and ignores the incredulous looks from the less experienced beta crew. "Any idea why we dropped, Scotty?"

_"Not yet, sir. I only just got her up an' running again. Give me an hour an' I'll have a better idea."_

"You've got thirty minutes, then I want a full report."

_"Aye, sir. Engineering out."_

Barely has that channel closed when Medical is on the other line, and he can tell from the strain in the tone that they've obviously been monitoring the comms. Uhura is watch officer for gamma shift tonight, so she wasn't on duty here today. He could have used her clear head just now to field communications and Bones could have used her reassurance.

_"Bridge, it's McCoy. Talk to me."_

"Cancel that call, Doctor. I'm fine, just had a little incident. Stay down there and don't tie up the turbolifts until we're out of this storm. Last thing we need is another malfunction due to an unnecessary power surge."

_"If you're lyin' to me, Jim –"_

"Do I sound like I'm lying? Go bug Spock, I haven't even heard from him. Bridge out."

Honestly, this ship. He _is_ going to gray before his time. Not cool.

"Uh…sir? Captain Kirk?"

He swivels the chair back toward the ruined console, and sees his crewman scrambling to her feet, looking disturbed. "Something wrong, Lieutenant?"

Tamura frowns. "Sir, I have no idea how, but…well. You might want to see this."

He raises an eyebrow, and then moves slowly across the expanse between them. Crouches down beside the remains of the console, and peers inside the wreckage where she's pointing, wide-eyed.

Well, that's not good.

He sits on his backside with a thump, dragging the heels of his hands slowly down his face. "Lieutenant, get Mr. Scott back and tell him I'm pretty sure I know why the computer dropped us out of warp." He sighs, and then stands, moving toward the turbolift. This really isn't funny. "Tell him to meet me in Science Lab Two."

"Aye, sir."

"Sulu, you have the conn."

"…Yes, Captain."

The doors haven't quite closed behind him when he hears one of the beta crewmen sniff curiously and ask if anyone else smells fried chicken.

Okay, it's a little funny.

* * *

It's considerably less funny when he doesn't even make it to Lab Two before he finds a honest-to-God _hole_ in the wall of Deck Fifteen: a legit, three-foot crater just basically gaping around the opening of a wall ventilation shaft. Like a giant mouse went at it or something.

A maintenance red-shirt, armed with a basic protolaser and thermal sealant, is standing in front of it staring in disbelief.

"Captain!" The man slams to attention as he passes, as if afraid Jim will think he's responsible. "Sir, I have no idea what could cause this!"

"Yeah, at ease, Ensign," he sighs, waving a hand over one shoulder as he keeps moving toward the labs. “Just…do the best you can.”

This is bad.

If they get into the replicating systems…

He pushes down a flare of panic at the idea of being adrift in uncharted space for weeks without the ability to replicate food and water, and pulls himself together before he walks into Science Lab Two.

Someone has hell to pay for letting this thing loose, and at this point he doesn't care which one of them is to blame.

Both of his XOs take one look at him and promptly glance at each other like guilty children. Jim is not at all unaware of the fact that the rest of the Science techs have suddenly decided they have very pressing duties elsewhere and have thrown their superiors under the proverbial shuttlecraft without a moment's hesitation.

"Gentlemen, I have a nest of dead tribbles in what's left of one of my Bridge consoles. Which, I may add, just exploded in my face and could have killed both me and one of your Science lieutenants on her first week of Bridge duty, Mr. Spock," he snaps, and the rare anger in his voice is enough to make Spock at least straighten into clear attention. Bones is still staring at him in disbelief, and a little concern.

"One of you had better have a really good explanation as to how we now apparently have an infestation problem, and the other one had better have a plan on how to get rid of them before they destroy every system on this ship. Or so help me, I will boot you both back to ensigns aboard the next waste recycling scow we come across, understood?"

"Quite clearly, Captain. We have made a grave miscalculation in this matter, though the initial quandary was not due to carelessness on the part of myself or Dr. McCoy."

He relaxes slightly. Spock always knows the minimum number of words to say in order to put out the fire of his anger immediately. (Spock also knows how few words it takes to add shuttle fuel to that fire, but that's a different matter entirely.) "I'm glad to hear that, at least. So what exactly was it due to, then? How do I have little zombie tribbles running around my ship."

Bones snorts. "They're not zombie tribbles, Jim, for gods' sake. They're perfectly healthy, living tribbles. A little…mutated, we think, but they're alive."

"Then what happened to the one – we only had one, right!? – that died?"

"We were able to determine that the cause of death was apparently poison, Captain." Spock looks more heartbroken than anything else, and that's a little adorable, because Jim knows while the thing literally did nothing but sit there and purr Spock's always had a soft spot for it because, well. It did play a role in his so-called resurrection those years ago. "Ensign D'ameron has admitted to leaving the contents of his mid-shift meal unguarded while on assignment here during gamma shift two nights previously. Among them was the dessert item you humans I believe call a brownie."

"Chocolate's deadly to most small furry animals, Jim. The poor thing ate its body weight in it, and, well…yeah. Totally unrelated to the blood-serum." Bones looks both relieved and sad, and while one weight is lifted off Jim's mind immediately – he's not dying, woo! – another one sinks even deeper, because that means…

"Wait, that means it ate enough to reproduce in like, twelve hours," he says, sinking feeling growing stronger.

"Uh-huh." Bones shifts uncomfortably. "From what we know about the things, they're basically born starving. Soooooo…"

He swallows, and grimaces at the mental picture. "Guess we know what happened to mama. So there's no zombie tribbles running around, just…cannibal baby tribbles that ate their way out of the womb?"

"Don't be crude, Jim. It's just survival instinct, their natural order. I think."

"You _think_!"

"Well, it's not in their natural order to eat _metal_ , but they've apparently evolved to doing that. So something's not quite right. Maybe because of the poison or something, I got no idea right now."

That's what he was afraid of. "Is this accurate, Spock?"

Spock looks resignedly at the computer monitor next to them, and flicks up a series of diagrams. "Unfortunately, it appears to be. Either by evolution or by choice, the…creatures, seem to be ingesting non-organic materials now, including vital parts of ship systems. This includes circuitry and even physical components of non-essential systems, as seen in the somewhat… _ventilated_ appearance of certain corridors in the _Enterprise_."

"They're literally eating my ship, is what you're saying."

"In essence, Captain…that is correct."

"We have an army of mutant tribbles _eating_ my ship. What the hell!"

Bones cringes. "Jim, look, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for –"

"I don't freaking care about the explanation, you better have an idea to get them off my ship ASAP! Short of bathing the _Enterprise_ in gamma ray bursts or something, which would damage the ship's computer banks something serious, I have no idea!"

"Captain, they are now considered a new subspecies of creature and therefore an entirely new type of animal intelligence; we cannot simply destroy them."

"Spock, if they turn this ship into a floating whack-a-mole game none of us will be in a position to do anything!"

"Cool it, both of you," Bones says, typing in the computer. "We have probably twelve hours before they eat through the replicating systems' insulation or the wiring around the force-fields that protect the central computer core. Looks like according to the report Scotty just filed, they've only gotten into the ventilation units, some non-essential circuitry, and the systems controlling the safety sensors and firewalls, which is why we dropped out of warp; they screwed up the autopilot. Anything else we can live with, and so we have twelve hours to figure out how to get rid of them."

"I cannot believe this," he mutters, pacing around the lab. Spock appears to take pity on him and goes to the other computer terminal, likely to ascertain more facts. "What if they get tired of chewing through the ventilation system and decide a crewman would be a nice change of pace!"

"Pretty sure any crewman on this ship is capable of drop-kicking an eight-inch furball, teeth or no teeth." Bones doesn't even look up from the computer, frowning at a diagram. "We got a little time before your precious ship turns into a night of the living dead tribble, Jim."

"This is not funny!"

Bones cackles at him over top of the computer screen. Spock looks totally lost, and simply shakes his head before returning to the screen before him. Good, at least if they think he's afraid of the stupid hairballs it means he's concealing the panic better than he thought.

Wait a minute.

He whirls on one heel in alarm. "Wait, Scotty said they're in the security systems?"

Bones jerks a thumb at Spock's terminal. "Read the report for yourself, I'm tied into the Medical mainframe right now. One thing at a time."

"Spock, are we talking about a huge security breach here?"

"I was attempting to ascertain those particulars, Captain." His First doesn't look too alarmed yet, only uneasy, as he scrolls through lines of corrupted code. Jim leans down to look over his shoulder. "I have scanned eighty-two-point-six percent of the _Enterprise_ 's Level One and Two encrypted files and they have not been accessed or corrupted."

"That only means the things haven't gotten into the databanks, not the processors. If they knock out certain firewalls or corrupt high-security subroutines we could dump classified information right into the mainstream, so to speak. Starfleet will have my _head_ if that happens."

"I am aware, Captain."

He can feel a migraine coming on. "There's no way to isolate the processors better than they are already, is there?"

"Short of erecting a modified force-field around the central processing core itself, Captain, I know of no such method. And judging from the rapidity with which the animals managed to adapt and bypass the force-field protecting the autopilot processor, that would be a stop-gap measure only."

"Time better spent in finding out how to eliminate them, in other words."

"Indeed." Spock shifts uneasily. "Given the risk to both the ship and to Starfleet security, I would classify this as a priority one threat."

"You think!"

"That is my primary function aboard this ship. Sir."

"Did you just sass me, Spock?"

A red alert siren interrupts what promises to be the closest thing they've had to a legit fight in probably months, drowning out whatever ineffective response his First was about to offer in his own defense.

Something tells him this is going to be a very long day.

* * *

Make that a long _week_.

He's only slightly vindicated by the fact that he can make his two executive officers report this lovely little incident to the Admiralty, and he gets to just sit back and watch Cartwright's face gradually increase in color by shades, running the gambit from the light pink of incredulity to the dark magenta of seriously pissed-off.

Honestly, it's just the fact that Jim has gotten really good at this managing stress thing in recent years that he's not approaching that state himself. That, and the fact that he finally broke down three days ago and started taking the mild anti-anxiety meds Bones had suggested for him long ago, in those early days when he had no freaking idea what he was doing and the idiocy to imagine it was a sign of weakness to accept artificial aid when he felt like he was going to shatter to pieces at a moment's notice.

Frankly, under the circumstances, he thinks he's entitled to a minor breakdown at the least, but there's no way in hell he's going to have one in front of his crew, and given the fact that they are all basically in each others' business these days trying to fix this out-of-control problem, that's a non-negotiable.

So, anti-anxiety hypos it is. Bones knows better than to grill him about the request, thank goodness, because the man's not an idiot, and only warns him they aren't meant for long-term use and for gods' sakes come to him if he needs to, don't try and be a hero because this isn't something to joke about, Jim.

Right now, though, it is pretty funny, watching a Vulcan try to patiently explain to a board of Admirals that the reason why the _Enterprise_ is currently drifting through uncharted space, badly damaged and in need of assistance, is because it's been overrun by an army of metal-eating furballs.

"Captain Kirk, if you please," Admiral Cartwright finally says in exasperation, and Jim sets down his coffee cup with a sigh. This is his last one for probably two weeks, and he wanted to enjoy it. No such luck, apparently.

"Yes, Admiral."

"Would you please be so good as to clarify whatever…this, is?"

"I believe my Science Officer clarified the matter most succinctly, Admiral. On which point would you like elaboration?"

At the other end of the table, the elderly Admiral Nogura inhales the contents of his water glass and coughs vigorously, while the rest don't even bother hiding their eye-rolls.

"Captain, the _Enterprise_ is the foremost starship in her class. You are telling us that a ship of this size, with this amount of manpower and technology, has been unable to withstand a…rodent infestation? And that is the cause of your distress call?"

"Technically, Admirals, the tribble is not a subspecies of the order _rodentia_ , but rather –"

"Mr. Spock, seriously, nobody cares. We did finally get rid of them, Admiral, by beaming them all into one of our escape shuttles and setting its autopilot for a Class M planet in the next system," he replies calmly. "But it took much longer than anticipated. They'd eaten enough of the ship's materials at that point that it took more time than my Chief Engineer thought it would to modify a transporter beam; our damaged technology was having a very hard time distinguishing tribble from ship."

"Can you not effect repairs?"

"Not in this case, Admiral." He keeps his voice calm, matter-of-fact. "They unfortunately were able to gain access to our replication and recycling systems before we were able to beam them off the ship. All but one of our replicators and nearly all of our waste recycling systems have been damaged beyond our ability to repair without proper replacements."

"Which cannot be manufactured aboard ship without said replication systems," Spock adds unnecessarily.

Cartwright's exasperation morphs into genuine alarm. "Kirk, your last report indicated you are at least two weeks from any 'Fleet Starbase!"

"That would be why we sent out a distress call, Admiral," he answers dryly.

The board of aging officials glance at each other, and their end of the connection is obviously muted as a discussion takes place, padds brought out and compared.

"What are we going to do if there's no ship in the quadrant, Captain?" Uhura asks quietly, voicing the opinion that is no doubt on the rest of his staff's minds.

"You ever been camping before, Lieutenant?"

She makes a face, and he grins.

"I hate you. Sir."

"Yeah, well, I hate camping, so we'll be in good company." He glances over at Chekov, who has been bouncing back and forth uneasily in his chair. "Mr. Chekov, your teams have already started scanning for planets that have a breathable atmosphere and water supply, correct?"

"Correct, sir. We should have preliminary results in six hours." He does not mention, and Jim does not call him out on the fact, that their previous stellar cartography scans already showed no planets within a seven-day journey of them at full warp speed, and they do not _have_ full warp speed right now.

Cartwright wheels back toward the viewscreen and unmutes the connection. "This is alarming news, Kirk," he says, unnecessarily.

 _Duh_. "I entirely agree, Admiral." He refrains, with effort, from rolling his eyes. "We are making all efforts to implement emergency protocols but we are in need of immediate assistance."

"We will do what we can, Captain, but the nearest ship we can reroute to you will take eight standard days to reach you at emergency warp speed. The _Pegasus_ is returning from a trade summit on Gamma Hydra VI and will divert to your location via the coordinates we are sending your communications chief now."

Relief swamps him in a cooling wave, and he leans over to check as Uhura nods, tilting her padd to show the coordinates have arrived safely. She's already messaging the helm to command a course change.

"I would recommend you adjust your course to intercept at whatever speed is available to you."

"Agreed."

"If any further aid or a better solution presents itself then we will of course be in contact, Kirk. That is, I'm afraid, the best that we can do. You were aware of the risks when you chose to accept this mission into uncharted space."

" _That's_ helpful," he hears McCoy mutter under his breath. A sharp elbow shuts him up for the time being, because they do not need to be pissing off the only people who are able to pull strings at this distance.

"We were aware. We appreciate the assistance, Admiral." He sighs, prepares to sign off.

"And Kirk," Cartwright says sharply, just before his hand hits the comm-switch.

"Yes, sir?"

"I don't need to remind you, of all people, what kind of panic can result from a confined population who believes themselves in danger of running out of rations." He can fairly feel the blood drain from his face as the aging admiral gives him a pointed look through the viewscreen. "I presume we can trust you to ensure a repeat of…past events, does not occur aboard the _Enterprise_."

His hands clench so hard he can feel bones grinding, thankfully out of sight under the briefing table. "You presume correctly, Admiral."

Wow, his voice actually didn't shake at all – that's impressive.

Cartwright cuts the connection without saying anything else, even more impressive, given that the man is renowned in the 'Fleet for his exquisite lack of tact.

For three whole seconds, you could hear a stylus drop in his briefing room.

Then –

"Gentlemen, you are dismissed," Spock's voice snaps over the room like lightning, and while it's amusing seeing Sulu and Chekov and even Scotty fairly climbing over each other to get out, they deserve a little more than that. He has to love Spock a little for trying, though.

"Hang on a minute," he says, laughing despite himself. "Sit back down, guys. It's fine, Spock." A slanted eyebrow clearly says _I beg to differ, you idiot human_ , but his First subsides in deference, as usual.

Bones has been weirdly, creepily silent, just watching him – waiting for the inevitable, and probably hoping he doesn't have to pick up pieces when he's done.

"So. You have questions."

"Uh. Well –"

A high-heeled boot clearly makes contact with Sulu's foot, whereupon his young helmsman shuts his mouth with a yelp and glares across the table at Uhura's look of imminent death. "Not unless you have answers you want to tell, sir," he says primly.

Jim leans back in his chair, folds his arms across his midsection to hide the fact that they aren't as steady as he'd like. "There's not much to tell, Lieutenant. Frankly, with the firewalls as patchy as they are from the tribbles right now, I'm surprised the files haven't just leaked past the classified section in my records into public knowledge."

Spock shifts, just ever so slightly, in his chair, but it's a tell.

Jim's eyes narrow.

"About that, Jim…" Bones clears his throat uneasily. "You know how when some things are flagged with key words in the data banks they just generate automated reports that get forwarded to certain places, certain people aboard ship…"

He stares first at his two executive officers, then around the table in consternation. "Are you freaking kidding me."

"Look, it's not like anybody went looking for it, Jim! I tried to delete 'em but your precious Vulcan got to 'em first and about beat my door down over it –"

"I did nothing of the kind, Doctor –"

"You _did_ , you flipped the hell out, Spock. Left right in the middle of our one and only tribble-free dinner date the entire week, too, Captain. Just so you know."

"…Sorry?"

"And 'twas a bit of an accident but Security always gets CC'd on anything that has to do with the captain, given the number of times, beggin' your pardon, sir, that ye've nearly gotten yourself killed on an away mission. We didn't exactly know until we were reading that they were files which shouldna have gotten un-classified, so to speak."

"Never mind. Just – never mind." He massages the skin around his eyes with both hands, mind reeling. "Anybody else have skeletons in their closet they want to drag out while we're at it here?"

"Chekov lied about his age so he could get into a club on Risa during our first shore leave there six years ago," Sulu volunteers brightly.

Their young navigator turns a bright red, and Jim rolls his eyes. "Anything relevant to the crisis at hand, Mr. Sulu?"

"Ah. No, sir."

" _Nyet_ , Captain."

"We got this, Captain," Uhura says quietly, and he half turns to see her give him a pointed look. "Timetables, ration schedules, possible repair schematics, it's all been seen to. Reaching the _Pegasus_ within eight days will only help take the pressure off."

He blinks, and looks over her shoulder at his First Officer. "That what you were working on this morning at breakfast?"

"That, and trying t’figure out how we can jury-rig the replicating units in Officers' Mess to reproduce machinery instead of food if need be," Scott interjects, waving a padd in the air. "It'll take a bit of reprogramming but it can be done, and if we can run them non-stop on auxiliary power re-routed through the wall charging conduits then we might just be able to repair two of the main replication units even before we reach the _Pegasus_."

He raises an eyebrow, impressed. "Won't we need those units for water recycling?"

Spock half-turns from where he is typing into the nearest computer terminal, obviously pulling up diagrams of some kind. "Bio-labs Fourteen and Fifteen are undertaking that problem at my direction, Captain, and have compiled a list of possible solutions for you to examine at your convenience."

"Huh." He shrugs, relaxes in the chair for the first time all morning. "Damn, you guys are good."

"Obviously." Spock's dead-pan from behind the computer screen triggers a round of nervous laughter.

"Well okay, then." He stands, stretches, and for the first time doesn't feel the lurking sense of panic that's followed him around for the last few days like a ghostly specter.

"I took care of re-flagging and classifying those files, by the way, Jim," Bones says, matter-of-factly, and Jim claps his shoulder in gratitude as he moves toward the door.

"Thanks. Not really something I want making its way into the public library banks."

"Mm-hm, you have enough dramatic backstory for one dark hero, don't you think, Captain?"

The doors open behind him and he turns, hands outstretched in an easy shrug as he backs out of the room. "What can I say, Lieutenant, I am just that awesome."

A couple of unimpressed snorts follow the closing of the doors behind him. He leans against them for a second and closes his eyes in a surprisingly strong mix of gratitude and affection that almost takes him to his knees. He has no intention of hiding anything from these people at this point in their journey together, but it’s oddly reassuring to know they would be willing to hide his own secrets if he asked.

That affection dims just a bit when Spock goes to leave and triggers the motion sensor for the sliding door, depositing him neatly inside the room again flat on his back.

Well, another lesson in humility never hurt anyone.

And after all – it is a _little_ funny.


	6. Chapter Six

I.

In retrospect, he should have known better than to think anything could possibly slip by under the eagle eye of his newly-promoted communications chief.

Lieutenant-Commander Nyota Uhura has more than earned the title, not just because she can speak four times as many languages as any other comms officer in the 'Fleet but more because nobody else could possibly put up with the insanity she does and not crack under the pressure. Jim's very proud of her, and if he takes every chance he has during conference calls to rub it in other captains' faces, well, that's just their loss. He's no longer the starry-eyed, cocky child-captain he once was, and if he wants to flaunt the fact that his crew can kick every other crew's combined asses with their eyes closed, then he's earned the right to do that, thanks very much.

But the downside of that is that Nyota can _literally_ hear a pin drop in a crowded room, and nothing slips past her unless there's a conspiracy to end all conspiracies to get it out from under her watchful eye and ear. This perspicacity has saved the crew more times than he can count, but in cases where he doesn't want his personal or official business broadcast everywhere, it can be a pain. Because she always tells Spock what she overhears, and then Spock has to chase him down all over the ship because he's not-concerned-since-that-is-a-human-emotion, and it's a little adorable and a little creepy and a _lot_ annoying.

But in this instance, he honestly doesn't see it coming, because the scenario just never crosses his mind as he has many other things occupying it.

His career in Starfleet has been somewhat…checkered, he believes is the polite word one of the tabloids used recently. He has as many official reprimands in his record as he has citations of valor, and at this point he's not sure which of them indicates he did his job better. How he escaped court martial after Yorktown he has no idea, but thankfully that was the last time he faced a wholesale loss of ship and crew; he's been far more cautious since.

This _Enterprise_ walks into no more traps, and her Captain makes no more leaps of blind trust.

Now, nearly finished with a second five-year mission and signed on with most of his crew for a third, pushing the better half of his thirties and hopefully making fewer mistakes every year – it's been an unusually bumpy ride, but he wouldn't trade it for the worlds.

On this particular morning, he is preparing to depart the _Enterprise_ for a brief, four-day leave. It is an unusual enough occurrence that his senior staff is entirely taken aback when he mentions it casually over breakfast.

Sulu spits the cornflake he choked on back into his spoon, and stares at him. "Seriously?"

"Gross." Uhura shoves a disposawipe across the table. "What are you, sixteen?"

"Did you not hear Captain Invincible here? Weren't you and Spock the ones who had to basically drug him and pack him in a shuttle bound for Rigel IV last time he was mandated a shore leave?"

" _Da_ , I vas there."

"So were like fifteen other people," he mutters, glaring half-heartedly across the table as he slaps a pat of replicated butter on his bagel. "Traitors."

"Anyway, the point is you talk big but you like, never take shore leave. Much less random vacation in the middle of nowhere. What gives?"

Spock's eyes appear over the top of his data-padd, diamond-hard with disapproval.

"Sorry. What gives, _sir_?"

He chokes on a hunk of bagel as the eyes roll upward and disappear again. After dislodging the food with a swallow of that nasty orange-flavored protein drink Bones still insists he has with breakfast even eight years after the Khan Incident, he waves the glass around carelessly, hoping to slosh some of it onto the table and thereby not have to drink it.

"Just felt like it, Mr. Sulu. And I have something I need to take care of on Starbase Alpha Pranaxis so I figured why not take a few days extra. Starfleet business, so no, you're not getting more than that."

Sulu shrugs, and returns to his cereal.

He sighs. "What, you want me to bring you gummy bears or something? Jesus. It's boring Starfleet business, not a five-star nebula cruise."

"He likes liquorice, not gummy bears," Chekov pipes up helpfully.

"Oh for pity's sake, Hikaru."

"I didn't say anything!"

He laughs, and for a few seconds the clink of flatware and occasional _ting_ of Spock's reports being sent off to various departments for the day are all that breaks the silence. He loves this, these ridiculously early mornings when for some reason they all wind up rising stupidly early and meeting up in Officers' Mess. (Bones told him in quite colorful Southern-Terran Standard just where he could go this morning when an attempt at awakening was made, so that's his loss. He’s showing his age.)

Sulu glances over at him, eyes glinting with mischief. "Sooooo, it's Starfleet business, that has to be conducted on one of the busiest Starbases in the galaxy, a primary shipping and tourist hub in addition to a branch of Starfleet HQ. Are you…serving on a court martial panel? A board of inquiry?"

"No," he replies dryly.

"Are you _getting_ court martialed?"

"No!"

"It's actually a reasonable question," Uhura points out mildly.

He snorts into his coffee cup. "See, this? This right here? Why none of you were invited. Not you, Spock," he adds, because in all fairness his First has done nothing but sit in loyal indifference by his side, probably doing all of their combined paperwork for the day in one-third the time it would have taken Jim to do just his half.

Spock looks ridiculously smug, and earns himself three glares as he leaves the table with a murmured excuse, headed for the Bridge to take over for the delta watch officer.

Lucky him. Jim has a twenty-four-plus hour shuttle ride, alone, to look forward to, and then the three-ring circus at the end.

Joy.

* * *

Not the way he'd choose to spend the next four days, but it's a duty he unfortunately doesn't have the option of declining.

Freaking politics.

He departs the _Enterprise_ in the _Galileo III_ (the first two, well…just don't ask, because he tries not to think about it), actually enjoying the freedom of being in the pilot's seat for once and also not having a Security contingent clinging to him like a Euridian leech-worm. In recent years he's become a bit less belligerent about letting them do their jobs, much to his Security Chief's relief, but it doesn't get any less annoying; so to have the shuttle minus a royal guard is actually welcome at first.

The shuttle bay decompressurizes around him as he lifts off, he sees DeSalle wave at him through the control room window, and then he's off into space with a flick of the navigation controls, his beautiful ship receding in the rearview. He sees the lights of the saucer section dim for just an instant and then return to normal – the starship equivalent of dipping a plane's wings in acknowledgment.

God, he loves this crew.

The autopilot will take care of keeping him on course unless he hits unexpected turbulence or some other danger unaccounted-for, so it leaves him free to amble around the small shuttle after setting it on a course for Alpha Pranaxis. He figures out how to work the tiny beverage replicator, finally – mental note, tell Scott to stop fiddling with the damn things, who cares if they replicate sandwiches as long as they can make a decent cup of coffee – and eventually finds his way into one of the two more comfortable reclining chairs with portable lap-desks, intent on doing some paperwork.

Once all his reports are finished in addition to next week's conference call prep, he looks at the chronometer.

Only three hours have passed.

It's going to be a long ride.

* * *

"Bones. Booooooones." The tiny screen, frozen on the back of his CMO's empty office chair, mocks him silently. "C'mon, Bones, this is childish."

 _"This is **multitasking** , Captain, because the rest of the world don't stop just because you left the ship."_ The words drift apparently from somewhere off-screen, and if he'd known this wasn't actually going to be a vid-comm he would have just texted. _"I got lab results to test and I can't do that from over there. Now what do you want."_

"Geez, grouchy much. Wait, lab results on what? Somebody sick?"

A tolerant sigh. _"Relax, Jim. Medical Lab Four has been experimenting with a new autoimmunity booster and all results have to be recreated and retested by the Chief Medical Officer before being submitted to the Head of Medical in Starfleet Command."_

"And you're doing those in your office, and not in the labs?"

_"At this point, it's just a matter of running simulations on different species via the Medical mainframe, Jim. Why d'you care, anyway? Are you really that bored?"_

"Yeah." He grins sheepishly, despite the fact that it can't be seen. "I should've packed something to do."

_"You got a whole galaxy's library available on that data-padd of yours, read a damn book. I'm busy."_

"Aw, come on, Bones. Bones!"

* * *

_"Beggin' your pardon, Captain, but if you wanted company that badly then I'd've been happy t'send a few of the boys with you."_

He scowls at the comm-link, because obviously he's not sounding as casual as he intends. "I don't need a baby-sitter, Scotty. You know as well as I do those impulse engines sounded weird last week and I've yet to see a report that you've found the cause."

_"I sent it off two nights past! 'Twas a faulty compression valve in the starboard nacelle, once we replaced that she started purring like a fat cat again. Took two hours o' Keenser crawling through Jefferies tubes not meant for man-sized species to get to the junction access, but it got replaced."_

"Spock must have done my paperwork again, I never saw that." He pauses for a second, finger tapping his lips. "Or it was just so boring I skipped it."

 _"Ehhh, you want interesting then read a book o' poetry,"_ is the retort, completely unoffended. _"But anyway, Captain. Y'need not worry about the_ Enterprise _. How much trouble can she get into in four days, anyway?"_

He snorts. "You really want me to answer that?"

_"On second thought, no. No jinxing us, if you please. Now is there something else I can do for you, sir, or can I get back to work now?"_

Sighing, he bids his CE farewell and signs off, only belatedly realizing he forgot to ask about the replicator.

He'll wait a while before calling back; not even he is brave enough to interrupt this particular engineer and his warp core inspections.

* * *

He doesn't like to nap in small crafts for some reason, likely because the last time he did was years ago on the last _Galileo_ , and he woke up just in time to hear Spock yelling up front for everyone to brace themselves for imminent collision with a Class L planet.

Like he said, don't ask.

But he does manage a short nap, and then does some work on the crew evaluations which are due next month, then another nap, then snacks a little on the nasty rations they keep on board these shuttles – another mental note, maybe Scott is on to something with the replicator – and finally dials up an instant messaging window out of sheer boredom.

Spock doesn't appear to mind playing chess in his head, through an instant message system, and it keeps them both sharp, so that occupies him for a good while. Their games are a little weird; they either last only like two minutes, or go for hours. Jim doesn't have much patience for the long game very often, but it's good for his tactical skill development, and Spock just enjoys wiping the floor with him nine times out of ten.

It's soooo worth it for that tenth time, though.

This kills another almost two hours, until a second IM window pops up on his screen, asking him with remarkable politeness if he wouldn't mind wrapping it up sometime tonight because Spock apparently is a Vulcan _idiot_ and refuses to get out of his warm bed to answer his messages, so the light and constant message pinging is keeping Nyota awake.

It's a wonder the woman hasn't killed Jim by now, honestly. He shoots off a message of apology for both himself and his idiot First and then makes a trio of poorly executed moves that allows Spock to checkmate him in short order, then commands him to stop being a jerk to his fiancée and go to sleep or she's likely to leave him for a more considerate, possibly higher-ranking officer.

The response he gets from both windows is in fluent colloquial Vulcan, but he understands enough of it to laugh out loud in the quiet of the shuttle before shutting off the padd and finally drifting into a deeper sleep.

Seriously, he loves this crew.

* * *

Alpha Pranaxis is a bustling starbase built into the side of a barren planetoid, shimmering with life and vitality under a protective dome that belies the arid wasteland and lack of atmosphere outside. A shipping hub on the stellar freight lanes, it is constantly filled with members of all Federation and non-hostile non-Federation species, but housing a primary branch of Starfleet HQ, it is the only destination for any official business in this entire sector.

This business, he could very much do without, and had said so when summoned; but unfortunately, he was not really given the option to decline. And after all these years, he has learned when and where to pick his battles with his superiors.

Here, in a time of relative quiet, receiving a medal for a mission whose success is really due to his crew and not him, is not one of those times.

You would think after almost ten years, he'd be used to wearing this stupid dress uniform, but it just gets more uncomfortable every time he has to put the thing on. Adding these dumb medals just makes it that much more pretentious and that's the last thing he needs; he does enough of a job making himself look like a moron without adding to that with some shiny ribbons and bobbles.

It's not that he's ashamed of the _Defiant_ incident, far from it. After all, they had managed to salvage enough of the ship’s logs to give the crew’s families closure before she had completely slipped into interphase, and his Science departments had single-handedly solved one of the great scientific mysteries of their time with its discovery. The whole scientific community is now talking about the concept of interphase, and Spock is being hailed as a tactical genius for his method of utilizing it as a possible future escape method in battle strategy. The strategic and scientific implications are amazing, no other word for it. (1)

But he really doesn't see why they should be pinning a medal on _him_ , instead of on some of his staff. They were the ones who figured out he wasn't really dead, only trapped in the interphase shift, and they were the ones who figured out how to get him back. All he did was float around and scare a few random crewmen and _panic_ for two days, running out of air.

But apparently, asking your Chief Engineer to beam out your three subordinates before you when only half your transporter pad is working and the ship is disappearing out from under your feet, constitutes 'selfless bravery beyond the call of duty'.

He suspects it’s just been long enough in this time of peace that they need a poster boy again, and the _Enterprise_ happens to be the drama queen of the universe.

He calls bullshit.

Spock called it an _unacceptable risk to the captain of a starship_ , and that was after he called Jim something in High Vulcan Jim is pretty sure translates as _colossally thrice-damned idiot I should choke again_.

They’re probably both right.

Not like he _wanted_ to add one more thing to his list of growing paranoias, thank you. He'll be lucky if he can ever put on an EV suit again without freaking out. He is still waking up at night dreaming that he's floating _through_ the walls of the _Enterprise_ , choking on air that's almost completely carbon dioxide, thick and heavy inside that silent, lonely helmet.

He inhales, counts one-two-three-four just like Bones instructed, lets it out counting to eight, inhales counting to four, exhales counting to eight. That's supposed to help both with anxiety and with getting more oxygen to the brain to ward off a headache.

Not really doing either, but whatever. He's on in just a minute, if this pompous bureaucrat can ever shut up.

Finally, after what feels like hours, he hears his name called, and mounts the steps to the platform, concentrating on not falling on his face in front of at least two Starfleet-permitted newscaster cameras and an auditorium of Starfleet officers. That would be just fabulous, one more appearance in the tabloids right before his mission-end review, if he face-plants before the Commodore of this sector.

Thank goodness, he manages to stop on the mark taped to the floor – score one for him – and snaps to attention, conscious of way too many curious and just as many bored eyes in the audience. An admiral he doesn't recognize by sight – Neilssen, thank goodness he can daydream and pay attention to names at the same time, a skill well-honed by now in his career – says something he doesn't really care about, the usual platitudes he's heard a hundred and one times. Turns, and gives him what looks like an actually genuine smile, and a nod of approval.

Maybe the guy isn't so bad after all. He relaxes just a fraction, and exhales slowly as the silver medal is pinned onto his dress jacket beside the other decorations he likes to leave in his dresser as often as he can get away with. Finally the ridiculous affair is over with, and a small smattering of polite applause filters through the room.

It's broken by a very loud, very shrill whistle.

Neilssen actually jumps, startled, and takes a step backward. Wide-eyed, Jim swings around, and immediately zeros in like an electromagnetic beacon on the back row of the small auditorium.

Chekov pulls his fingers out of his mouth and waves both hands sheepishly while three seats down, he sees Bones facepalm. Uhura whaps their navigator upside the head in exasperation and shoots him an apologetic look from in-between them.

"Oh my God."

Sulu holds up an honest-to-gods color-changing LED _sign_ he must have stolen from Ship’s Stores and Requisitions, and high-fives Montgomery Scott just as the news cameras finally figure out what's happening and swing around to focus on his command crew.

He can fairly feel his face burning, all the way down into his starched dress collar. "I am so sorry, sir."

The admiral just laughs, and claps him on the shoulder. "Enjoy it, son," he says, and Jim stifles a snicker as Spock is caught on zoomed-in camera looking exceptionally bored with the entire affair. "You've got a good crew there, you know."

"I've got a freaking _amazing_ crew, Admiral." He grins as Bones says something to an over-eager reporter that sends the kid skittering away with a look of utter terror. "But right now I'd like to know where my ship is and who's commanding her, if they're sitting here."

* * *

"I want you to know, this was not my idea," is Bones's first statement, hands raised in a melodramatic _laissez faire_ gesture.

"Shut up, you were just as much a part of it as anybody," Uhura scoffs, elbowing him. "The drawing attention to ourselves like a bunch of first-year cadets wasn't part of the plan, though, sir," she adds, sending a glare over her shoulder.

Chekov's face turns the color of Scott's dress uniform. "It was the heat of the moment, Keptin. My apologies."

He laughs, and wonders absently when exactly it was that the kid got so tall. "Just how did you pull this off, anyway? And who is running my ship? Commander?" He directs the inquiries at his First, who is standing patiently to one side while the idiot humans run around making fools of themselves.

"The _Enterprise_ arrived at Alpha Pranaxis and established an orbital dock approximately two hours prior to the ceremonies' commencement, Captain. As to who is in command, Lieutenant Masters is in need of eight more hours logged as commanding officer of a non-priority mission in order for Starfleet to approve her promotion to Lieutenant-Commander and Assistant Chief Engineer. This seemed an appropriate opportunity to, as you humans put it, exterminate two avians with one projectile."

Uhura hides a smile behind her hand. Jim has no such shame, and snickers. "Right. So all that time when I was talking to you guys, you were like three hours behind me?"

"We actually were ahead of you, we jumped to higher warp and took a longer route around in case you for some reason started running short-range scans from the shuttle," Sulu interjects with a grin.

"And I assume you found out about this whole circus by eavesdropping on the comms," he says with a pointed look at Uhura.

She shrugs, entirely without shame. "Not my fault if you don't encrypt messages and then leave them cluttering up my board, I have to file them somewhere. You should know better. _Sir_."

"And you managed to swing this little diversion past the Admiralty, how?"

"The crew's overdue for shore leave, and medical records show a significant enough decline in morale to justify the detour to a starbase to take it," Bones interjects with a shrug. "'Sides, Neilssen owes me a favor from years back at the Academy. We have five days before we're expected back on course, and I for one intend to take them. There's a six-star intergalactic restaurant on the other side of this dustbowl with my name on it."

"Let me beam back up and put these medals away and I'll come with," he says, tugging at the collar of the starched dress tunic. "I mean, if you didn't already have plans," he adds, belatedly realizing it's a little rude to presume everyone aboard is as lonely as he is sometimes.

"Reservation's in your name, Jim. We had to drop it in order to get a table at this late notice."

"Aye, they were only too glad to be hostin' the newly-decorated hero, sir," Scott adds with a wicked smirk.

He splutters for a second in indignation.

"Really, gentlemen."

"Oh, don't look at me like that, you pointy-eared space elf! You delegate things, you got no right to complain about the methods used to get them done."

Spock sighs audibly, and casts his eyes toward the simulated sky in a familiar _Surak-forgive-me-for-the-urge-to-strangle-this-human_ look Jim is all too familiar with.

"If you're gonna change then get your ass back up there and do it, Jim. I got fifty credits that says we can find something in that seventy-page menu that'll finally get Spock to loosen up tonight."

He laughs, and ignores the glare of death Uhura is sending their CMO over Spock's shoulder. "Bones, leave him alone."

"Doctor, as well you know from xenobiological and medical information on file regarding my species, Vulcans are completely incapable of becoming intoxicated from consumption of alcoholic substances, due to significant differences in our metabolic rates from that of humanoid species."

"Yes, well." He grins, and flips open his communicator. "Kirk to _Enterprise_. Don't forget, Spock, that the old version of you was _so_ much more willing to impart personal information. To me, at least."

Spock's eyes narrow.

Uhura looks _way_ too interested.

"Two words, Lieutenant. _After-dinner mints_." He waggles his eyebrows at her dumbfounded expression, and laughs as the transporter beam shimmers into existence around him. (2)

Now that little reveal, is something worth a medal for bravery. He probably needs to lock his door tonight so Spock doesn't kill him in his sleep, but Nyota will likely send him a fruit basket on their last day of shore leave.

Until then?

Until then, he has his tall ship, and stars to steer her by, and an amazingly dysfunctional family that he never wanted and never asked for and never, ever plans on letting go.

And that's really no secret at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) This is vaguely referencing both The Tholian Web and a chapter in a previously posted story of mine.  
> (2) Contradicting popular fanon, the original theory regarding Vulcan intoxication came from Gene Roddenberry himself in the novelization of ST:IV, where someone on a bus in San Francisco gave Spock a peppermint with very interesting results. We see chocolate being used often as the intoxicant in fanfiction, but according to the original theory, it's actually complex sugar rather than cacao itself which is the cause. I usually prefer to go non-mainstream in my own fics just for sake of variety.


End file.
